Presscott vs. Northwood

[stevo1210]

I know these are both "ancient" CPUs for todays standards, but I have a friend who has a pair of these in 478 format. Both are 3.2GHz in speed. He is unsure of what to use in his office PC. I believe the Northwoods run cooler and faster than a Prescott but the Prescott has SSE3 and a bigger cache?
I have this concern for heat as the case he is using is one of those desktop ones you have on the desk and pop a monitor on top... looks quite cramped in there. Motherboard is an AsRock P4i65G and supports both chips... just looking to upgrade from a 2.66GHz Celeron D. LOL

[ratdude747]

Re: Presscott vs. Northwood

Depends on who you ask and what your intentions are.

Presscott runs hotter but OCs a lot better.

Northwood runs cooler but OCs worse.

All I can say is to try each one and see...

[Scenic]

Re: Presscott vs. Northwood

Go for northwood, especially in a crammed case. Performance difference is not enough to actually feel it. Only visible in benchmarks.

The point about OCing is moot (it's an ASRock board lol)

edit: you can directly compare the specs of the two CPUs if you want.
Go to http://www.cpu-world.com and type the SSpec number (like SL6WG, SL7PN etc.. it's engraved in the CPU's heatspreader) into the "identify" field on the right.

[mariushm]

Re: Presscott vs. Northwood

Look them up at http://cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php

Intel Pentium 4 3.20GHz 522
Intel Pentium D 3.20GHz 888

I guess these are the 2 3.2 Ghz but I'm not sure. Yeah, if I remember correctly the Prescott is better.

[Scenic]

Re: Presscott vs. Northwood

Uhm.. you compared a Pentium 4 3.2GHz with unknown core (Prescott/Northwood) against a Pentium D (Pentium 4 Prescott x2).. no wonder the latter seems faster :P

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Presscott vs. Northwood

He is unsure of what to use in his office PC. I believe the Northwoods run cooler and faster than a Prescott.

Nope.
.
Most Northwood are cooler but not all and faster depends on FSB and cache.
.
Northwoods went up to 89 watts and Prescotts started at 89 watts [because of the smaller die] so this is another place where you can't make a generalization like that.
You have to look at the specific CPU.
.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Presscott vs. Northwood

I've used both, and also had a Northwood which OC'ed like a dream (1.8GHz @ 3.6 undervolted), but also had crap OC'ers. My first Pentium 4 system (3.0GHz HT) was the last one my dad built for me, and it suffered from a lack of RAM. From there on i built my own and went for less powerful CPUs but plenty of RAM, and have never gone wrong with this mindset.

Clock by clock, the Prescott HT is faster. If you have a big cooler sitting around, use a Prescott. If you're using a SFF case, go for Northwood, otherwise it'll be in thermal throttling all the time and running like a Pentium II.

[severach]

Re: Presscott vs. Northwood

Any Pentium 4 with HT is faster than any Pentium 4 without. FSB 800 FTW!

[stevo1210]

Re: Presscott vs. Northwood

Alright, so I suppose a Northwood is the go then? I'm not sure what the exact model numbers on each CPU are... so won't be able to provide a wattage TDP for each. However I do have to agree that in a cramped little shuttle case it's going to get hot and the OST caps in there don't look like they will cope with a Prescott!

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Presscott vs. Northwood

For socket 478 3.2Ghz TDP..
Northwood = 82w
Prescott = 89w
.
With a difference that small since the Prescott will finish tasks sooner (and so spend more time at idle) the net effect on system heat will probably be no difference at all.
.
It's definitely not enough difference to be getting your nickers in a bunch like that.
.

[brethin]

Re: Presscott vs. Northwood

Go with the fastest FSB speed cpu first (which most of the time will be the Prescott). If heat is a issue use better cooling.

[Scenic]

Re: Presscott vs. Northwood

I'm not sure what the exact model numbers on each CPU are... so won't be able to provide a wattage TDP for each.

Like I said before, the SSpec number is engraved into the heatspreader. With that, you can look up the detailed specs on CPU-World.

It's like a part number, with every intel CPU having it (always a 5 letter/number code that starts with "S")



On cpu-world, put the Sspec number in the "Identify part" field on the right and click go.


This will bring you to a page showing the basic specs. To get all the details, you have to click on any of the part numbers shown.


You'll end up on a page with every single detail about that CPU (see 3rd attachment.. won't post it inline cause it's huge)

edit:

Go with the fastest FSB speed cpu first (which most of the time will be the Prescott). If heat is a issue use better cooling.

All 3.2GHz Northwood P4s on Socket 478 (SL6WE, SL6WG, SL792) are 800MHz FSB :P
And only one of them (SL792) does not have HT (or at least the info is missing).