Upgrading a 478. Need expert advice.

[Aital]

I have the Asus P4c800e deluxe board. I got it with a cheap 2.4 celron so I could upgrade it later. I'm now thinking of upgrading and could use some advice. I've also been reading alot about not upgrading and just getting newer systems and the difference between the northwood and prescott if you do upgrade. I don't really know which to do in either case.

If I do upgrade, what reasons do you have to choose between the northwood and prescott, and why do people say the northwood is better. I have the good copper zalman fan with quiet mode so I have some cooling if that makes a difference(my only issue may be power, which I may need help to determing if I'm having an issue with also.) What was the real difference between the northwood and prescott. and how much of a good idea is it to get a new system. I can probably only afford a small amount at a time right now and I don't know what to even begin to look at with newer systems. I'm guessing by time I built it I would just have to upgrade again anyway. Or is it worth it compared to the cost of a 125 dollar processor upgrade.

I have a 2.4celron, Corsair value select 512x2(2100), 2 sata 250GB WD 7500 rpm drives (stripe), 9800xt.

And is overclocking a good option to make up for the difference in newer systems with this sort of setup? One of the threads mentioned using lower timed 3200 I beleive instead of 500mhz ram. What is the gain compared to newer systems?

There is a 48 hour free ground shipping on the 3.4E. It's kind of tempting but I'm currious about this prescott northwood tradoff. I heard about it alot when they were first tested against each other but I never really got to hear what the real nitty gritty was I guess and am still don't know enough about it to really make the decision for what I would want to do with it or to compare with what I think I may use the computer for after.. Also, Is the E worth it or make up for anything in the prescott. I think it is the new stepping with the safetly features or whatever in it.

I will probably have alot of questions after this, so don't worry about lack of info now. I will answer any questions you have.

Edit: And how much in general would a new system cost now if I built a new one. And how new would I need for it to justify the upgrade. I have a 550W powersupply now and can keep the moniter, sound card, hard drives(SATA) and possibly the ram if it has a board that can still use 182 pin modules. (I'm not sure if mine are ddr or sdram.) I've seen some boards that have support for them still but I don't know if they support 2100 speeds. Though I think they were core duo or core 2 duo support.

It was AGP also so it was designed for crossing over stuff which wouldn't be bad for me if i upgraded. because I could keep my ATI 9800xt for abit longer and the board was only 45 dollars on ebay. I just don't know enough about what proccessor I would want to go up to.

Motherboard

I know it is alot, but thank you for any help you can give me!

 

[Kingslayer]

Prescott Core is 90nm, Nothwood Core is 120nm. The Prescott runs hotter. These are the only 2 differences that I know of.

I have a P4 3.0 Prescott and have had no problems with heat with stock cooling.

I think a processor upgrade might give you a noticeable performance boost on your current system. If thats all you can afford

IMHO, save your money up and buy a completely new system. C2D!!!

 

[Aital]

Oh, on a different note realy quick. Is a PPGA a normal P3.4E? I saw one and didn't know if it was the same as a normal 478 and might have missed out on a 58 dollar bid for that prescott.

Yea, my only problem is they are expensive for being only 478. The cheapest I found online was for 125(OEM. And now back up to 137$). I can find the 775 versions for 99$. I'm not sure what I'm getting at the moment with people seeminly being so stingy about the 478 sales. I agree with somone I saw saying that the 478 3.4 are only really worth like 50 bucks. It is now a 2 year old proccessor and on an old buss type and socket.

I need to check some local stores and see If the prices go any cheaper there. It would be a shame to find out they are doing so bad with prices that the local stores had more commen sense to drop the prices right. Though, I guess it would be nice to have stores near me doing well in that area again.

 

[joefriday]

You have several options here. You never really stated what it is you do w/the computer. I'm assuming you play games for the most part.

1. Upgrade the CPU and be happy. That old Northwood Celeron is really holding you back on gaming performance, and overclocking it won't help at all. You could buy a Northwood "C" series 800 fsb cpu and get a good boost in performance, or you could buy one of the Prescott E series cpus. The Northwoods run quite a bit cooler and consume around 20-30 less watts than a similarly clocked Prescott. However, already having a decent aftermarkt HSF and a quite powerful PSU means you really have nothing to worry about when buying a Prescott. If you want to overclock the CPU that you buy, then definately buy the Prescott, as it will overclock on average about 500 MHz higher than a Northwood. If you're just gonna run it at stock setting, get the Northwood for cooler operation and less power consumption.

Another possibility is purchasing a Celeron D cpu or the prescott 2.4A and overclocking them from the 533fsb to the 800 fsb, giving you a 50% overclock. The Celeron D 310 (2.13GHz), 315 (2.26GHz), and 320 (2.4Ghz) are prime candidates as they have the best chance of running on the 800fsb (at 3.2, 3.4, and 3.6 GHz respectively).

2. Upgrade your mobo AMD or intel 775. There are still AMD boards out there that (mostly NForce3) that allow you to re-use your DDR ram and AGP card, and the price for socket 754 and socket 939 CPUs are super cheap. On the intel side, Asrock has you covered with their 775i65G or their 4COREDUAL-VSTA. The 775i65G is AGP and DDR-only and supports suppots any Chip intel has ever made for socket 775, including quadcore and the recently released E4300. The 4COREDUAL-VSTA allows you to use your current AGP and DDR ram and then upgrade to PCIexpress and DDR2 in the future. It also supports all current CPUs from intel. Either one is a good buy. The 775i65G limitis your upgrades as far as graphics cards is concerend, but it is mATX if you need your mobo to be so. If you can fit a full size ATX board into your case, buy the 4COREDUAL-VSTA. You won't be sorry.

 

[Aital]

Yea, those look pretty good. I have a Spider X-alien case. It's a full tower. And I have ATX. I'll have to look into those proccessors a bit. Thank you.

I still have to check the price of the second board you recommended. And I guess getting a cheaper prescott or something and overclocking it didn't cross my mind because I didn't think any of them would overclock that much. If they can that may be a good option for me. Would it match the performance of the 3.4 prescott or be anywhere near as good as it if I overclocked the thouth? Is there anything about them that made them better as far as upgrding or were they all just low end stuff to demonstrate the 775 chips?

The other thing I was wondering was if I overclocked, and determined what the best proccessor was was what ram to get to help overclock. I have the first 2100, value select, 512mb modules that corsair brought out. They do pretty good But I don't know how much they will hold up if I overclock that much. I could do 20 percent with the celron originally and can now do about 15 and I'm not sure if the ram had anything to do with it or if the processor simply stopped Ocing that much. I need to go into the overclocking forum and make a post too, I think(about the ram mostly). I'm going for as cheap as possible right now, basically(I thought by now the 3.4 would be alot cheaper). But I really originally wanted to max my comp out since it is no longer supported. I just still wish they would finally drop the prices on the 478's once and for all.

And those proccessor did bring up a big question I had, after they started coming out, as to wether they would end up being better as a final full upgrade for this board. I never was able to find out if any of them would ultimately be better as a last upgrade or if the origianl 3.4 would end up being the best processor I could get to finally fill out this computer fully. I never looked up enough what the difference was between them and I was having kind of a hard time figureing out what the difference would be with how much they were changing at the time.

 

[g-paw]

If there is any you can afford it, upgrade. Depending on what you do and your budget, you could upgrade starting at about $400 give or take. How are you suing the machine and what is your budget?

 

[joefriday]

If all you have is pc2100 ram, all have to run asynchronous if your cpu is running on the 800fsb. You know, Newegg is selling a P4 Northwood 2.8GHz, 533 fsb cpu that would run 1:1 with your ram. It's not a terrible option for $75.

The cost of the 4COREDUAL-VSTA board is ~$60. It is a newly released mobo that replaces the current DUAL-VSTA board that asrock has been selling for quite some time. The only difference between the two is that Asrock guarantees that a kentsfield will work on the 4COREDUAL-VSTA, although some people are claiming that it is really just a change in name alone, and that even the old DUAL-VSTA "should" be able to run a kentsfield cpu, provided you flash it's bios to that of the 4COREDUAL-VSTA.

To re-use even your pc2100 ram, I think a nice upgrade would be a Pentium D 805 and that Asrock 4COREDUAL-VSTA. Total price for a retail Pentium D (I don't know if you can use your aftermarket cooler on LGA 775 boards) is ~$90, plus ~$60 for the Asrock mobo, puts you at about $150 for an upgrade to a dual core cpu that will game LIGHTYEARS better than that old Celeron, plus you'll have a direct upgrade path to Core 2 duo and Core 2 quadro, DDRII ram, and PCI express when you feel you need more performance. Sounds like the better investment to me.

For even less, you could get an AMD socket 939 board and an Athlon 64 single core cpu. Once again your ram and cpu would be running asynchronous, but that's a small issue. You can easily pick up an old Nforce 3 board and an Athlon 64 3000 or 3200 for the total price of $120, but then you're stuck with AGP and DDR, although it is cheaper than the Intel mobo/cpu upgrade, and would outperform it.

 

[1Tanker]

I have the Asus P4c800e deluxe board. I got it with a cheap 2.4 celron so I could upgrade it later. I'm now thinking of upgrading and could use some advice. I've also been reading alot about not upgrading and just getting newer systems and the difference between the northwood and prescott if you do upgrade. I don't really know which to do in either case.

If I do upgrade, what reasons do you have to choose between the northwood and prescott, and why do people say the northwood is better. I have the good copper zalman fan with quiet mode so I have some cooling if that makes a difference(my only issue may be power, which I may need help to determing if I'm having an issue with also.) What was the real difference between the northwood and prescott. and how much of a good idea is it to get a new system. I can probably only afford a small amount at a time right now and I don't know what to even begin to look at with newer systems. I'm guessing by time I built it I would just have to upgrade again anyway. Or is it worth it compared to the cost of a 125 dollar processor upgrade.

I have a 2.4celron, Corsair value select 512x2(2100), 2 sata 250GB WD 7500 rpm drives (stripe), 9800xt.

And is overclocking a good option to make up for the difference in newer systems with this sort of setup? One of the threads mentioned using lower timed 3200 I beleive instead of 500mhz ram. What is the gain compared to newer systems?

There is a 48 hour free ground shipping on the 3.4E. It's kind of tempting but I'm currious about this prescott northwood tradoff. I heard about it alot when they were first tested against each other but I never really got to hear what the real nitty gritty was I guess and am still don't know enough about it to really make the decision for what I would want to do with it or to compare with what I think I may use the computer for after.. Also, Is the E worth it or make up for anything in the prescott. I think it is the new stepping with the safetly features or whatever in it.

I will probably have alot of questions after this, so don't worry about lack of info now. I will answer any questions you have.

Edit: And how much in general would a new system cost now if I built a new one. And how new would I need for it to justify the upgrade. I have a 550W powersupply now and can keep the moniter, sound card, hard drives(SATA) and possibly the ram if it has a board that can still use 182 pin modules. (I'm not sure if mine are ddr or sdram.) I've seen some boards that have support for them still but I don't know if they support 2100 speeds. Though I think they were core duo or core 2 duo support.

It was AGP also so it was designed for crossing over stuff which wouldn't be bad for me if i upgraded. because I could keep my ATI 9800xt for abit longer and the board was only 45 dollars on ebay. I just don't know enough about what proccessor I would want to go up to.

Motherboard

I know it is alot, but thank you for any help you can give me!

joefriday has given some good options...but no matter which way you go, you need better RAM. The only way that RAM will suffice, is if you get a 533FSB processor(not much of an upgrade). Using the old RAM with an 800FSB processor, will require running the RAM slower than the processor FSB, which will hamper performance(making the upgrade barely worth it). GL

 

[The_Hanz]

Yea, my only problem is they are expensive for being only 478. The cheapest I found online was for 125(OEM. And now back up to 137$). I can find the 775 versions for 99$. I'm not sure what I'm getting at the moment with people seeminly being so stingy about the 478 sales. I agree with somone I saw saying that the 478 3.4 are only really worth like 50 bucks. It is now a 2 year old proccessor and on an old buss type and socket.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819116027

I just bought this for my 478 board to replace my celeron....first one was DOA though. Overpriced for the peformance but I can't afford to build another whole system.

 

[Aital]

Will ram prices be dropping soon? I'm still waiting to get the chance to get et 2 or more gigs one day. Is anything likely going to push intels or the other prices down in the next few months? I was hoping to just upgrade the proccessor for now. I was hoping the ram would hold out untill later when I could buy it and maybe overclock alot with whatever I got. But if I'm going to wait I guess I should just save the money on both if the ram will hold me back alot.

Oh and does anyone know if any of these processors, or any I can upgrade to have unlocked multipliers? I would love to be able to overclock this properly. I know the EE's are unlocked but I didn't know if naything else would be. I saw some ES models on ebay but I'm guessing from another thread you are not supposed to buy them or is it only if they are not sold as ES versions. From what I've heard I'm guessing if I get one It will likely be beaten to death already though. So, on the other hand is there any chance they will be coming out with unlocked 478 revision for any odd reason?

 

[The_Hanz]

Will ram prices be dropping soon? I'm still waiting to get the chance to get et 2 or more gigs one day. Is anything likely going to push intels or the other prices down in the next few months? I was hoping to just upgrade the proccessor for now. I was hoping the ram would hold out untill later when I could buy it and maybe overclock alot with whatever I got. But if I'm going to wait I guess I should just save the money on both if the ram will hold me back alot.

Oh and does anyone know if any of these processors, or any I can upgrade to have unlocked multipliers? I would love to be able to overclock this properly. I know the EE's are unlocked but I didn't know if naything else would be. I saw some ES models on ebay but I'm guessing from another thread you are not supposed to buy them or is it only if they are not sold as ES versions. From what I've heard I'm guessing if I get one It will likely be beaten to death already though. So, on the other hand is there any chance they will be coming out with unlocked 478 revision for any odd reason?

I just got this for ram....works great. Going from 256mb to over a gig increased my performance more than anything else so far.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820220058

I don't know much about the selection of processors....I was quite disappointed myself. In the end I bought what I linked in my previous post.

Maybe I'll buy a watercooling system that I can use on this 478 socket system and then when I build my C2D system I could maybe use it on that....that way you'd get to have better performance on your 478 without wasting the money for something old because you could also use it on a 775. Not all can do it, but I was perusing around Newegg and I thought I saw a couple that could go on both.....or you could get watercooling and just by a different waterblock when you go to a different system.

Just kickin' the ol' peanut around....if anyone else has better ideas I'd be more than willing to listen to them.