p4 2.8 need help on this

joaoh · Post by **joaoh** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 8:49 am

Hi guys, i´m typing from Portugal, and saluting you all! My English is a bit rusty.. but i need a little help on o/c wichh is something i've never done and a bit of advice before spending my money. If this isn´t the right place to put this questions please feel free to adress me to the right road

I plan buying a new system, my basic interest in computer is multimedia (photoshop, premiere) and i currently own a pentium II

!!

My budget is a bit low so i plan buying some stuff to a local seller, i dono nothing about assembling so i have to stay with him, but have a few questions first about the:

processor:
p4 prescott 2.8 E (i don´t know waht E stands for...) is the one with 1MB cache or the 512K cache Hyper Threading?

mobo: it seems that the p4c800 E delx seems the one to go for

ram: 1 GB of good and known stuff, i´ve read...

HD: which one to go for? SATA?? i don´t plan to go RAID? any comments?

Graphics Card: Should i go 128MB or 256MB, are there any significant differences?

now the worst part..

cooling (i plan p/c

): how to cool the system? does the CPU COOLER P4 SILENCE that the local dealer wants to sell is good enough for o/c

well that´s all folks, i hope someone can help on this one and be the godfather of my new system for the next say.. 2 years

next all be satying online for the o/c part of it

needless to say but thanx a lot

Post by **Apoptosis** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 9:58 am

Joaoh,

First let me welcome you to the forums. We hope that you come to like the community here and stick around!

1) The P4 2.8E is a 1mb cache CPU with Hyper Threading (E = Prescott)
2) Stick with name brand memory, Value Series is okay if not overclocking (stick with HyperX, XMS or something if O/C'ing)
3) SATA is the way of the future and is stable. All brands are decent.
4) Graphics... What model are you looking at?
5)Cooling... I have NEVER heard of that heat sink. The 2.8 E prescott needs a pretty good heat sink for overclocking. I'd look into Swiftech's and Thermalright's if your local dealer can order some in.

So far looks like a good system there and will be a KILLER upgrade over your old Pentium 2!

joaoh · Post by **joaoh** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 10:29 am

tanx apoptosis (did i say it right)

for your warm welcome

as to the ram i dono the brand yet but specs are 2x512 DDR 400MHZ

graphic card ATI RADEON 9600 128MB because my budget is on the red line, but if you have a better bet for this system with the same price, it´s welcome

Post by **Apoptosis** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 10:43 am

On the Radeon 9600 I wouldn't bother getting more than 128mb on it. I'd rather get a 9700Pro/9800Pro/9800XT 128mb cards before getting more memory on the 9600.

Let us know what memory it is when you find out!

joaoh · Post by **joaoh** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 11:06 am

[quote="Apoptosis"]On the Radeon 9600 I wouldn't bother getting more than 128mb on it. I'd rather get a 9700Pro/9800Pro/9800XT 128mb cards before getting more memory on the 9600.

ok, but does it interfere with o/c or making poorer performance on the system?

I´m not a gamer and my main goal is to buy a system that can be stable and upgradable to work with photoshop mainly and premiere as i said before

on the other hand you said "before getting more memory on the 9600" and it buzzed my mind. Are these GFX Cards updatable? Does it mean that i could buy more mb to put on it?

Ignorance... is the leastest of sins, worst is not asking!

Post by **Apoptosis** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 11:22 am

Right now you can't upgrade or "add to" the memory capacity on current video cards. So what you buy is what you are stuck with!

Since most Intel motherboards have a PCI Bus that can be locked at 33MHz/66MHz you're video card will remain constant while the FSB (front stide bus) is overclocked. So when you overclock your processor the video card will remain "stock" or non-overclocked. So for overclocking performance having 256mb or 128mb doesn't matter unless you plan on overclocking your video card and that is a whole new story.

I'm not sure what will render faster in photoshop... a 9600 256mb or an 9800 Pro 128mb. Anyone in here have an answer?

Immortal · Post by **Immortal** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 11:44 am

OC'ing with the 2.8E is risky as it runs hot already and to make things worse Portugal gets pretty hot... so a warm ambient temp doesnt help much.
A good cooler is a must, the Zalman CNPS-7000CU is a very good quiet heatsink and performs VERY VERY well, definatley my choice.

As Apop said, the GFX card wont matter cause ur PCI-bus will be locked, so its up to you, a 9600 will be more than enough for photoshop and mid-range gaming, but if you want more gaming performance then the 9800 is def the way to go.

Hope this helps.

Bio-Hazard · Post by **Bio-Hazard** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 11:46 am

I'm not a 100% sure either. But I think with the 128 card as I think Photoshop is system memory dependant. I'd have to do somemore reading on that one though.

joaoh · Post by **joaoh** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 12:53 pm

Hey immortal, do you how much is the current temp in Portugal? 35C, man, everyone is in bathing suite and going crazy

this is mid september..

"Third, I took my 2.8E up to 3.5 (250 FSB) no problem on an ASUS P4C800E-Deluxe." said capper 5016, in another thread and based on solid opinions like the ones i read on this forum, i´m trying to build a decent solid system overclocked (my first ever...

)

i just went to the local dealer and i know RAM is from Kingston but he doesn't seem to know waht Hyper X or XMS stands for

neither do I

he told me that the P4Prescott 2.8E comes in 2 flavours FSB 800 and 533 and he´s not sure if he can manage the 800. Is there any significance in this regarding o/c

tanx you guys for posting

Post by **Apoptosis** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 1:01 pm

Performance Memory Lines:

Kingston HyperX -- Link
Corsair XMS -- Link
Crucial Ballistix -- Link
PQI Turbo -- Link
OCZ Technology -- Link

I believe that Kingston and Crucial should be some of the more available local memory lines in portugal.

joaoh · Post by **joaoh** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 2:19 pm

tanx Apop, i plan to buy next the stuff next week but i'm preparing things to o/c. I read that is good to have some monitoring software to check temps and i downloaded cpu-z; motherboard monitor and everest. do I need anything more to check things up?

Do you have any link that i can follow to o/c step by step without messing too much things?

I found a usefull resource at http://www.overclock.net/showthread.php?t=1567, but i'm not sure if it's enough. I don´t know if i´ll be able to be online when things start to HEAT so i want to be with information on my hands to feel a bit more comfortable

A10Pilot3 · Post by **A10Pilot3** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 4:02 pm

I would go with a 2.8C, not the E... here are some benchmarks I took from two processors I've had.

2.8GHz Northwood o/c 3GHz (800MHz FSB, HT Technology)
7322 PCMarks

3GHz Prescott (800MHz FSB, HT Technology)
6334 PCMarks

3GHz Prescott o/c 3.6GHz (800MHz FSB, HT Technology)
7631 PCMarks

Northwood = C
Prescott = E

The Northwood is about the same price, runs cooler, and has better performance. As you can see, a 2.8C o/c to 3GHz is slightly faster than a 3.0E o/c to 3.45 (ok so maybe the 3.45 score isn't shown, but you get the point, 3GHz beats the 3.45, Northwoods are faster at the same clock speed).

Post by **Apoptosis** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 4:12 pm

A10-- Both processors have their good points... Joaoh said he is not playing video games and is building a multimedia computer...

Let's look at some multimedia benchmarks that I did...

As you can tell the Prescott did better than an equally clocked Northwood...

Flip a coin all depends on what you are doing...

joaoh · Post by **joaoh** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 4:14 pm

tans a10, but it seems that northwood dissapeared from this little market and prescott is all i have..

joaoh · Post by **joaoh** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 5:48 pm

Saw this post but i dont understand why the PCI/AGP bus goes out of spec... since it's not changeable from the bios or is it? or it´s simply because you o/c that the PCI bus goes out of spec causing all the trouble?

can anyone adress this?

"Why does running the PCI/AGP bus out of spec cause instability?
Running the PCI bus out of spec causes instability mainly because it forces components with very strict tolerances to run at a different frequency then they are intended to. The PCI spec is usually stated at 33mhz. Sometimes it is stated at 33.3mhz, which I believe is closer to the real spec. The main victim of high PCI speeds is the hard drive controller. Certain controller cards have a higher tolerance than others, and so are able to run at increased speeds without noticeable corruption. However, the onboard controllers on most motherboards (especially SATA controllers) are extremely sensitive to high PCI speeds, and can have corruption and data loss if the PCI bus is running at even 35mhz. Most are able to do 34mhz, as it is really less then 1mhz out of spec (depending on where the motherboard stops rounding to 34mhz... for example, most motherboards will probably report any FSB from 134mhz-137 as being a 34mhz PCI speed. The actual range is from 33.5mhz to 34.25mhz, and may vary even more based on variations in the clock frequency of the motherboard. At higher FSBs and higher dividers, the range can be even more). Audio and other integrated peripherals also suffer when the PCI bus is run out of spec. ATI video cards are a lot less tolerant to high AGP speeds (directly related to PCI speed) than nVidia cards. With that in mind, most Realtek lan cards (the PCI based ones that occupy an expansion slot) are rated for safe operation at anywhere from 30-40mhz."

A10Pilot3 · Post by **A10Pilot3** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 8:36 pm

Thanks Apop, I was just using PCMark02 to get my benchmarks.