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I wish I could go higher than 250mhz fsb on my MSI nForce 4, this 4000+ is solid at 3Ghz and I don't feel like I am pushing it at all . Is there truly a better processor for $78 that I am missing?

Vista experience index: 4.4 (due to the processor)

Ram 4.5 (forced because of 1GB Dual DDR, Supposedly Vista "needs" 1.5GB to show me a real benchmark, pffft. Stupid M$)

Video 5.9

Gaming 5.9 (amazing what a 650mhz clocked $120 7900GS will do , I just used nibitor and nvflash on a "floppy-bootable" USB stick to put that in the bios so I don't need any utils in Vista , isn't that a stock GTX clock? )

I would agree that "seems" like it is effectively an e6600, as the QX6700 that they labeled a q6600 in the graphs "seems" like a q6600. I'm not accusing them of lying, just that it could have been more obvious since many people zoom straight to the graphs. I just wonder why they didn't call it what it actually was the way they did the e4300, which obviously isn't supposed to run at 2.4 GHz (according to Intel, not the THG community ). Actually I guess it's not supposed to run @ 2.4 GHz according to the THG community either, that's way too slow. I doubt it affected the outcome of the tests at all, but I would be curious to see if an underclocked FX-62 would perform better than the 4600+ they used.

In fact, I would be more interested to see comparisons of the top processors against the lesser ones in the same line at equivalent clocks (although I'd rather see an OC'd e6600 than an underclocked X6800) to see how much/little performance overclockers are trading off versus buying the more expensive parts. I think we all already knew that C2D > X2 > P4 as someone previously stated.

I'm not an AMD nut (P4 Northwood user in fact )I just thought that guy had one possible point who suggested an underclocked FX, that seems to be a more appropriate comparison to an underclocked intel Extreme since those two series are supposed to compete with each other (on the rare occasions that both vendors have a comparable product simultaneously).

Wish you guys would have overclocked an Athlon XP to put in this test. (I know it's possible; I used to have one at 2.6ghz)

errr... Where? Even 65nm models weren't able to get past 6.2 GHz even cooled down with liquid nitrogen... And somewhere, the point is to be able to use those processors in a desktop system - meaning, on air with a heat spreader fitting inside a small case.

CPU-Z's record charts has a handful of high 7Ghz results last I checked (probably sixth months ago), and there was some news fairly recently about a group in Europe (I believe) that got either a P4-630 or 631 (don't remember at the moment) to over 8Ghz, admittedly using LN and customized hardware (as in, beefed up caps and such). So technically it does have that capacity on nitrogen, but you're completely correct on the second half of that statement; good air is the best you can rationally claim for "design capabilities" of a chip.

Just nitpicking... (though didn't Intel promise us 10+Ghz netburst chips when they first rolled out the architecture?)

Only a 5.2ghz Prescott and a 10.2ghz Nehalem to be released in '05!

According to THIS, the x6800 would benefit from the reduced multiplier on a 965 as the NBCC* (North Bridge Core Clock) = (11/9) x 266 = 325 vs and e6600's NBCC* of 266.

*Note CPU-Z does not report NBCC.

That thread STILL hasn't been updated since november and it doesn't say that, at all. It says that it would be exactly the same as an e6600 as the concept they are discussing supposedly doesn't apply to the "extreme" edition CPUs (which makes zero sense to me and causes me to question the validity of any of the new statements they make). Since the NB is is only used for memory access in the benchmarks run (no IO, no GFX) the theoretically increased NBCC would not have a performance advantage as it would not improve memory bandwidth or timings. If the extreme CPU reacted the same way to having it's multi lowered as other processors it could actualy suffer a performance PENALTY due to an increased NB strap, if such a higher strap even existed on the mobo used in the test. At 325mhz it shouldn't be bumping it up to the 333strap yet but there are some mobos that seem to move to higher strapping early to achieve higher clock rates (but ussually reduced performance). If it went to a higher strap the increased NB latencies would lower NB performance even with a higher clock rate.

So it shouldn't be doing that and even if it did it shouldn't matter.

If you take an 6800 and lower the multiplier to 9x and run with stock memory speeds at a 1:1 ratio, then the result is an identical duplication to the spec of what an E6600 is. There is no benifit, nor any gain, just simply the performance of running an E6600.

I'm just saying that NetBurst is actually able to operate at clock speeds in excess of 8GHz, if you keep it cool enough. Intel themselves had Presler operating at, IIRC, 6GHz on liquid nitrogen.

But as I said, it ran into the law of physics and then crashed an burned.

Exactly, so why did they use a slow Pentium 4? Why not use a 3.6GHz Cedar Mill/Prescott processor?

For the sake of a fair test, the Pentium 4 needs to be set at its fastest speed, as that's its only point of performance.

They assembled all those CPU's, spent all that time running the tests.....yet they can't? find an E6300, or don't have the time to test one. I think won't is the more appropriate word. :x
Word. At the rate they're putting the 6300 off, they might as well add it with the 4xxx CPUs at the same time.

you still miss the point of this article's test: compare the performance per MHz of the 3 (4 with Core) available at retail CPU architectures.
For maximum performance at peak efficiency, look at Tom's CPU charts: AMD 6000+/FX, C2D QX6x00, P4-D9xx.
What appears here is that C2D is 15% faster at same clock speed than the K8 and Core, and 60% faster than P4.
It also appears that threaded apps run faster on multicore CPUs. No kidding.
End of story.

I stated that earlier in the discussion, i have an XP-M that will run at 2.7, but I run at 2.4 24/7. Love to see it stomp the Netbust around.

Actually at those prices, time encoding divided by price, the Pentium 4 is the clear winner.

[quote=My quick calculations]Seconds / Price

Q6600
0.13593380614657210401891252955083
E6600
0.37060702875399361022364217252396
E4300
0.73964497041420118343195266272189
4600+ 65w
1.1746031746031746031746031746032
4600+
0.79
P4
4[/quote]
Greatest number wins... what I found them to be ranked:

1) Pentium 4
2) 4600+ 65watt
3) 4600+ standard
4) E4300
5) E6600
6) Q6600

True, very good point, but unfortunatley electricity isn't free in that many places of the world. The C2D and the (mid range) athlon's have very close energy consumption, when you take the system as whole into account (not just CPU!)

The Pentium 4 goes from the clear winner, to last as fast as you can say "Dell"

Stop me if I'm wrong, but the P4 used here is a single core affair. If you compare it to an Athlon64 or a Core2 Solo (which cost pretty much half the price of their dual core siblings at the same frequency) then your math goes down - since a single core at DivX encoding isn't twice as slow - it goes down merely 30-40% (if that much).
For example, pit that P4 against an Athlon64 3800+ (which runs at 2.4 GHz and costs 90 bucks).
See the P4 go down in flames.

Rereading it; the funniest thing in this article is:

8O ; if you clock a 2.8GHz (FSB800) prescott to 2.4G it only goes down to FSB 685, and that's not bottlenecking even for a dual core (as JJ once proved it and because most mobile chips have a 667MHz FSB).
Even if these guys don't want to make such assumptions, I inform them of the Extreme Editions for both P4s and PDs on which they can swing the multiplier down without dropping the FSB....
The truth is that on half of those benches, the old Northwood P4 kicks the prescott (and it's derivations) off and tehy just wanted to spare them the n-th humiliation; the only moment in the whole CPU history when real world performance decreased instead of increasing

That is correct.

I don't think there is a Core 2 Solo. I am 99% sure the Core 2 line is dual core only as of now (and quad core using two dual cores in a single package). Nevertheless, let's take a look at the performance including a single-core A64: