Cooling & Overclocking for P4

if youre gona spend the money and buy a p4 why not go for a better model? youre wasting a fair bit already... go for the athlon... p4 1.4 is at $171 and the 1.4 athlons at $177 (pricewatch.com) and considering that the 1.4 athlon clocks a lot better than the p4s and its already significantly faster than the 1.4 p4 i cant see a reason for you not to buy it...

you do not strengthen the weak by weakening the strong

i though an apple g4 would be better for video... but thats just me then isnt it? yeh true the p4 aint too bad for video... sorry about that... my eye slipped for no apparent reason (potentially hours and hours of exams in recent days) for audio and gaming i'd go for the athlon though for video editing the p4 is almost certainly the better choice (though i still personally think you would get more out of a athlon 1.4 o/cd to 1700mhz than a p4 1.4 o/cd to 1450mhz...) also cooling for the p4 tends to be more specialised... the old heatsinks suiting all the p3s tbs cellerons etc (well... the newer models anyway...) there are some good choices for the p4... im not sure but i think one of the best heatsinks tom tested is usable with p4s... but anyway... whatever you do... good luck...

you do not strengthen the weak by weakening the strong

<<<• Do I need an individual cooler for my CPU (without oc)?>>>

yes

<<<• If yes, is it included in shipping with the CPU?>>>

if you buy the retail version

<<<• Is P4 1.4ghz stable for overclocking and up to what rate?>>>

the 1.3 would be better for overclocking due to a better chance of getting it to 133fsb.

<<<• Where can I find a comprehensive guide for clocking and cooling? (beginners)>>>

http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardw [...] c_special/

there is a good article on p4 overclocking

"though i still personally think you would get more out of a athlon 1.4 o/cd to 1700mhz than a p4 1.4 o/cd to 1450mhz..."

Lemmings and the crap they spew...

P4 1.4 Ghz will overclock to 1.6Ghz
P4 1.5Ghz will overclock to 1.7Ghz
P4 1.7Ghz will overclock to 2Ghz
All with stock heatsink and fan on the Asus P4T motherboard.

no technology is "current" for very long...it just depends on your needs. you are, of course, right about the slot A, however, all future versions pentium 4 chips will not be compatable with the 423 socket <A HREF="http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/00q4/001016/roadmap-04.html" target="_new">http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/00q4/001016/roadmap-04.html</A>.
the willamette will soon be replaced by the northwood which requires a socket 478.

indeed the p4 may continue to beat the athlon, but this seems like another example of intel asking its customers to bend over and grab their ankles if they want a chip upgrade.

but the choice is yours, personaly, if i were hell bent on buying a p4 i'd wait for the northwood.


All in favor of loading Bush and crew into a rocket for the moon say "I".

Sharky Extreme's guide to P4 oc was great, except for this part:

<-quote-><font color=blue>
Most Pentium 4 owners will be forced to manipulate their front side bus to overclock, since the frequency multiplier is locked. Generally, the biggest limitation to front side bus modification is the RDRAM's frequency, which doesn't like to be pushed above 900MHz. With a 133MHz bus, we'd be clocking the memory at 1066MHz - far above the accepted tolerance for RDRAM. For this reason, ASUS has incorporated an extra setting into the BIOS of the P4T to allow the Rambus memory to run at a lower ratio (3x, as opposed to 4x the FSB speed).

Using this feature, we were able to take our front side bus up from 100MHz to 130, 133, and even 150MHz! Since these values are all multiplied by four (after being quad-pumped), our final bus frequencies are effectively 520, 533, and 600MHz!</font color=blue>
<-end quote->

I simply can't do the maths. Here's where I loose it:

<font color=red>"With a 133MHz bus, we'd be clocking the memory at 1066MHz"</font color=red>
133x4=532, not 1066!

<font color=red>"ASUS has incorporated an extra setting into the BIOS of the P4T to allow the Rambus memory to run at a lower ratio (3x, as opposed to 4x the FSB speed).

Using this feature, we were able to take our front side bus up from 100MHz to 130, 133, and even 150MHz! Since these values are all multiplied by four (after being quad-pumped), our final bus frequencies are effectively 520, 533, and 600MHz!"</font color=red>
multiplied by four? didn't they just lower the ratio to 3x?

Now clearly, as you can see, I'm having a hard time grasping this, could somebody pleasse explain? BTW, can I set the FSB in BIOS (my mainboard is an Asus P4T (yes, honestly!))?

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/ Topaz