Upgrade 2.8 Ghz to 3.4 Ghz

purecomedy · Post by **purecomedy** » Sat Aug 25, 2007 4:08 pm

If I could upgrade from a 2.8 Ghz P4 Northwood to a 3.4 Ghz Northwood for something like $50 would that be worth it?

Sava700 · Post by **Sava700** » Sat Aug 25, 2007 4:33 pm

purecomedy wrote:If I could upgrade from a 2.8 Ghz P4 Northwood to a 3.4 Ghz Northwood for something like $50 would that be worth it?

it would be a decent step up, but does that socket mobo accept a dual core?

purecomedy · Post by **purecomedy** » Sat Aug 25, 2007 8:44 pm

Sava700 wrote:it would be a decent step up, but does that socket mobo accept a dual core?

Yeah it's already a 2.8C so it's hyperthreaded currently.

Shagster · Post by **Shagster** » Sun Aug 26, 2007 12:20 am

You probably wouldn't notice anything.

A_old · Post by **A_old** » Sun Aug 26, 2007 12:58 am

depends on the application (gaming would benefit if ur vid card is currently processor limited, video encoding, 3d rendering would benefit as well)

purecomedy · Post by **purecomedy** » Sun Aug 26, 2007 3:06 am

Amro wrote:depends on the application (gaming would benefit if ur vid card is currently processor limited, video encoding, 3d rendering would benefit as well)

I've got a GeForce 7600 GT which I assume is good enough that the CPU is probably the bottleneck. If I play a game like the latest Need for Speed game if I pump up the video quality to the max the game is kind of choppy but 1 setting down from the max it is fine. With that information, can anyone deduce if my CPU is the bottleneck or the video card?

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Sun Aug 26, 2007 7:12 am

what resolution are you playing at ?

have you tried overclocking the CPU ?

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Sun Aug 26, 2007 10:01 am

The 2.8C overclocks like a champ..you should be able to get her above 3.2 without even pushing your system....may get towards 3.4 or so and still be stable.

Brent · Post by **Brent** » Sun Aug 26, 2007 1:11 pm

With the latest Need for Speed game you are GPU limited, not CPU limited.

I would overclock the CPU though if you can, those were good overclockers.

purecomedy · Post by **purecomedy** » Sun Aug 26, 2007 1:29 pm

Mark: Resolution was probably reasonable, like 1024 * 768 or maybe a step up from that. I played with the AI overclocking (ASUS P4C800-E motherboard) but that thing sucked. I think I've stepped up the manual overclock in BIOS to 5% overclock before but I turned that off while trying to solve this hard drive issue (where on the 3rd hard drive I've tried my computer reboots every hour or so). Using the Beta BIOS I'm going on 3 days with no problems.

YeOldeStonecat: By the same token couldn't I overclock a 3.4 to 4.0 then! I've actually got one of those massive a Zalman copper heatsinks (CNPS7000B-Cu) that would help with overclocking (2.8 to 3.2 would be about 15% overclock) I'm glad you mentioned a specific number because I really wasn't sure how far I could overclock this puppy. What can I say, it's Canada and summer is short so I've made the most of it which meant this Zalman has sat on the shelf since June!

Brent: Interesting that you think my video card is the bottleneck. I think I paid a reasonable price for it maybe $200 (ie. it wasn't the best card available at the time). I just figured the $500 cards probably give me 20% more power but cost more than twice as much. I built a PC for my dad with a similar video card but it's a Core 2 Duo 2.4 Ghz (E6600 I think) and he can play FarCry with video on Extreme video settings and everything looks amazing. I imagine FarCry is a little older than the newest Need for Speed game.

David · Post by **David** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 10:07 am

There have been mixed results in o/cing those processors. Supposedly the malay package chips clock better than the Costa Rican variety, if memory serves.

loop2kil · Post by **loop2kil** » Thu Sep 20, 2007 11:01 pm

I personally do not believe that upgrade would be worth $50...the 2.8 should easily hit 3.2 like cat said without much trouble...add ram or save for a better video card as you are certainly video card limited right now...i think the best AGP card can be had for around $150 is the ATI x1950 pro or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

here's the card you need to max out your system:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 814161071R

purecomedy · Post by **purecomedy** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 2:56 pm

loop2kil wrote:I personally do not believe that upgrade would be worth $50...the 2.8 should easily hit 3.2 like cat said without much trouble...add ram or save for a better video card as you are certainly video card limited right now...i think the best AGP card can be had for around $150 is the ATI x1950 pro or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

here's the card you need to max out your system:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 814161071R

Just to be clear, gaming is only 1 of the benchmarks I would use for speed. I like a machine that is overall very quick at opening windows, general navigation, running ad-aware scans etc. The way I see it, 2.8 overclocks to 3.2 and a 3.4 could overclock to 3.8 so I'm still looking at almost 20% gain on some tasks.

That said, it's probably time to start thinking ahead to a new machine that would work well with Vista.

loop2kil · Post by **loop2kil** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 2:20 am

'quickness' could also be obtained through a better hard drive...ie a Raptor.

3.4 was the upper boundary of that particular cpu cycle and socket so don't assume the 3.4 could hit 3.8...just as a 2.8 might hit 3.2-3.4 the 2.4 could hit 3.2-3.4 as well because that chip was designed to go that fast but not much faster...just don't want you to get your hopes up.

bobolito · Post by **bobolito** » Wed Sep 26, 2007 1:55 pm

If you wanna see a real difference get a new motherboard with a Core2 Duo. Even at lower frequency speeds, they'll be faster than any 3Ghz HT CPU.

purecomedy · Post by **purecomedy** » Wed Sep 26, 2007 3:33 pm

bobolito wrote:If you wanna see a real difference get a new motherboard with a Core2 Duo. Even at lower frequency speeds, they'll be faster than any 3Ghz HT CPU.

No question, the difference is that I need to shell out about $800 for all the parts (memory, PCI-E video card, case etc.) to put together a Core2 Duo whereas the upgrade I'm talking about with a 3.4 Northwood is a $75 or so item on Ebay.

I will buy a new machine soon but it's fun to have a fairly fast second machine around because you can play a few multi player games (probably not the newest games) at my house that way.

zooner · Post by **zooner** » Wed Sep 26, 2007 3:58 pm

purecomedy wrote:No question, the difference is that I need to shell out about $800 for all the parts (memory, PCI-E video card, case etc.) to put together a Core2 Duo whereas the upgrade I'm talking about with a 3.4 Northwood is a $75 or so item on Ebay.

I will buy a new machine soon but it's fun to have a fairly fast second machine around because you can play a few multi player games (probably not the newest games) at my house that way.

You don't have to go that far!

You can pick up a x2 3800 socket939 for relatively cheap and a matching motherboard that'll take your current memory.

I'm sure you could achieve such results in ~$100 and be in a constant state of computer bliss as a result.

purecomedy · Post by **purecomedy** » Thu Sep 27, 2007 10:58 am

zooner wrote:You don't have to go that far!

You can pick up a x2 3800 socket939 for relatively cheap and a matching motherboard that'll take your current memory.

I'm sure you could achieve such results in ~$100 and be in a constant state of computer bliss as a result.

Not wanting to start a AMD vs. Intel thread here but any time I have put together an AMD box for somebody (always done it for friends that want lower costs) the machine has failed to live up to the "as fast as Intel" benchmarks and advertisements. I remember a few years back when I built an AMD 2800 machine for my friend and when we played a Command and Conquer game he'd have game speed on about 50 and I'd have it on about 8 and mine would still be faster. Oh and he had a better video card than I did as well. Sorry, I would interpret AMD 3800 as about Intel 3.2 Ghz in real world tests from my past experiences.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Thu Sep 27, 2007 11:06 am

//another nudge to just start overclocking her...

David · Post by **David** » Thu Sep 27, 2007 12:28 pm

purecomedy wrote:No question, the difference is that I need to shell out about $800 for all the parts (memory, PCI-E video card, case etc.) to put together a Core2 Duo whereas the upgrade I'm talking about with a 3.4 Northwood is a $75 or so item on Ebay.

I will buy a new machine soon but it's fun to have a fairly fast second machine around because you can play a few multi player games (probably not the newest games) at my house that way.

http://forums.speedguide.net/showthread.php?t=220993

Possibly a little cheaper today.