What is a Pentium 4 capable of in 2016?

[Pentium4]

I thought this would be a fun experiment. It might just end up being me and momaka trading replies, but all inputs are welcome

I have the highest end P4 made, the 3.73GHz Extreme Edition one with a 1066 FSB. I have it in my Asus P5QL-PRO board with 8GB of dual channel 1066MHz DDR2. As you can see, I have a massive beast heatsink on there. It does well. Sitting at 50% CPU usage, the CPU gets to about 46C. Not bad considering it's a massive power hog.

What I wanted to do....was various experiments and see what the highest end P4 is capable of (Starting out with stock speeds) in modern day computing. A CPU that once cost $1000 to own. I have a 120GB Intel 530 series SSD, and a Radeon HD 7950 to ensure that the CPU is the lowest end part of the computer.

I am willing to do video tests, games, internet browsing, Linux/Windows comparisons. Anyone have any suggestions??

For fun, here are some pictures:

[jiroy]

Re: What is a Pentium 4 capable of in 2016?

Why a Pentium cpu when this board can use a core duo2 quad ? . It would be a crippled system on a solid win 7 . Even a dual core is a handicap now .

I made such test on a Pentium basis cpu on a XP SP3 and yet , even XP lagged a lot , especially when using the Net .
8GB of DDR2 wont save the day since a weak processor wont be capable of taking the necessary advantage .

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: What is a Pentium 4 capable of in 2016?

Wasn't the Extreme Edition the one with the unlocked multipler? You could try overclocking it. I have had decent results with a Celeron D overclocked to 4.2GHz.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: What is a Pentium 4 capable of in 2016?

ok, i resent my name being left out in all the pentium 4 funn as well because a celeron based p4 2.4ghz with 400fsb was in my first self-built rig which was later upgraded to a northwood 2.8ghz with 533fsb.

here are some old benchmark scores for 3dmark03 and 3dmark06 which i did with a p4c northwood 3.2ghz overclocked to 3.6 on stock vcore. video card was a nvidia geforce 6800 ultra running at stock.

3dmark03 winxp sp3 with forceware xtreme-g 301.42 drivers

3dmark06 winxp sp3 with forceware xtreme-g 301.42 drivers


hey hey hey! i even did some benchmarks with windows 98se!!
3dmark03 win98se with regular forceware 81.98 drivers for the 6800 ultra

i even did a benchmark run with an ati radeon 9800 pro 128mb! using the last catalyst 6.2 drivers for win98se!


unfortunately, back on the main topic, i dont think a 2016 benchmark will run on a pentium 4 and windows xp... all the current benchmarks now all demand win7. booooo

Wasn't the Extreme Edition the one with the unlocked multipler? You could try overclocking it. I have had decent results with a Celeron D overclocked to 4.2GHz.

yes. he could. he has a very beefy cpu cooler. i wonder how much it can overclock. i always wanna know how well the higher-speed binned chips can overclock.

tho nothing too excessive tho. the mobo only has 4 power phases. if overclocking, make sure u keep an eye on the mobo cpu vrm mosfet temperature. dont wanna be frying the board but not the cpu! lol!

[stj]

Re: What is a Pentium 4 capable of in 2016?

it should be good,
i have a laptop wih a 1GHz p3 running XP, and a laptop wih a 700MHz p3 running vector-Linux that are both perfectly useable.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: What is a Pentium 4 capable of in 2016?

I guess it depends on your definition of "perfectly usable" - my old machine running XP SP2 on dual 1.53GHz PIIIs (oc from 1.4) with 2GB SDRAM and a Radeon 9800 Pro can barely load basic things like yahoo mail or gmail these days.

[eccerr0r]

Re: What is a Pentium 4 capable of in 2016?

Isn't it sad that yahoo mail and gmail websites load their pages with so much useless crap to slow down web browsing on older machines, not to mention modern browsers are so full of crap too (and the forced upgrades due to bugfixes)?

I still have some 3.4GHz P4's around somewhere, a lot of modern apps just seem to run poorly on them (though the 1.6GHz Pentium-M and 1.6GHz Atom are worse...though the former is better than the latter)

[stj]

Re: What is a Pentium 4 capable of in 2016?

that may be it, i dont use the xp laptop online - it drives my eprom programmer.

btw - try this if you can
https://brave.com/

[hurlieburlie]

Re: What is a Pentium 4 capable of in 2016?

I would say using it for some kind of server would be a pretty good idea.

[Audison]

Re: What is a Pentium 4 capable of in 2016?

Pentium 4 is unbelievably slow and power inefficient for usage in 2016. Try installing Windows 10 for example. Or just simply browse more demanding websites. It cannot cope even with the simple tasks like that. I tired everything with my P4 3.20 GHz and it was just unusable on windows or linux. Got AMD X3 710 for cheap and it is so much faster. Never again I will waste so much of my time trying to make one core CPU do anything because they are just garbage. Almost all programs are now multi-threaded and this is where multi-core CPUs shine.

[Topcat]

Re: What is a Pentium 4 capable of in 2016?

Single core....yikes. C2D/C2Q is still very usable today. FWIW, a pair of 2.8GHz dual-core paxvilles (netburst P4/xeon) is still very usable today....never underestimate old hardware!

[Per Hansson]

Re: What is a Pentium 4 capable of in 2016?

To me it's not usable, single core CPU's just don't work with modern demands.
But of course it depends what you use it for, and how you define useful.
I have a Thinkpad T40 with XP that works great to mess with my car.
Of course taking it online is a whole different cup of tea...
All tools have their specific uses.
I just feel a Pentium 4 never was good at anything, not back then and certainly not now.
That's my 0.02SEK worth

[Pentium4]

Re: What is a Pentium 4 capable of in 2016?

Why a Pentium cpu when this board can use a core duo2 quad ? . It would be a crippled system on a solid win 7 . Even a dual core is a handicap now .

I made such test on a Pentium basis cpu on a XP SP3 and yet , even XP lagged a lot , especially when using the Net .
8GB of DDR2 wont save the day since a weak processor wont be capable of taking the necessary advantage .

Ha, I knew a response like this was coming. That's not the point of this thread. Did you even read it?

Wasn't the Extreme Edition the one with the unlocked multipler? You could try overclocking it. I have had decent results with a Celeron D overclocked to 4.2GHz.

Yeah, it has an unlocked multiplier. I can't seem to up it on this board though A decent OC would be nice. Even like 4.26GHz would make a difference and up the bandwidth as well.

ok, i resent my name being left out in all the pentium 4 funn as well because a celeron based p4 2.4ghz with 400fsb was in my first self-built rig which was later upgraded to a northwood 2.8ghz with 533fsb.

here are some old benchmark scores for 3dmark03 and 3dmark06 which i did with a p4c northwood 3.2ghz overclocked to 3.6 on stock vcore. video card was a nvidia geforce 6800 ultra running at stock.

*snip*

Thanks for sharing Honestly, Windows 7 runs pretty well on a P4. It utilizes HT a lot better than XP.

it should be good,
i have a laptop wih a 1GHz p3 running XP, and a laptop wih a 700MHz p3 running vector-Linux that are both perfectly useable.

Wow! Usable on a 700MHz P3? I will check out Vector, sounds interesting. I also have an old Abit board with two Pentium 3 1.40GHz-S CPUs and 4GB of ECC RAM. I may have to run some tests on this as well

Isn't it sad that yahoo mail and gmail websites load their pages with so much useless crap to slow down web browsing on older machines, not to mention modern browsers are so full of crap too (and the forced upgrades due to bugfixes)?

I still have some 3.4GHz P4's around somewhere, a lot of modern apps just seem to run poorly on them (though the 1.6GHz Pentium-M and 1.6GHz Atom are worse...though the former is better than the latter)

Yes, it is sad....The internet didn't used to be like that. Like Badcaps and Wikipedia for instance. I ran both those websites on a Pentium II 400MHz and 256MB of RAM with plenty of speed.

that may be it, i dont use the xp laptop online - it drives my eprom programmer.

btw - try this if you can
https://brave.com/

Thanks for the link. I will check that out as well!

[Pentium4]

Re: What is a Pentium 4 capable of in 2016?

I would say using it for some kind of server would be a pretty good idea.

I have multiple P4 servers The Cedar Mill 65nm revision really brought down the heat.

Pentium 4 is unbelievably slow and power inefficient for usage in 2016. Try installing Windows 10 for example. Or just simply browse more demanding websites. It cannot cope even with the simple tasks like that. I tired everything with my P4 3.20 GHz and it was just unusable on windows or linux. Got AMD X3 710 for cheap and it is so much faster. Never again I will waste so much of my time trying to make one core CPU do anything because they are just garbage. Almost all programs are now multi-threaded and this is where multi-core CPUs shine.

Lol...That's a S478 CPU with 512KB cache and DDR RAM. There is a huge difference between that and a CPU like this one with higher clock, 4 times the cache, faster bus, and faster (dual channel) RAM. Plus, sadly browsing the internet isn't even a simple task anymore with all the ads on websites. Even multiple core CPUs can see high usage with multiple tabs open.

Single core....yikes. C2D/C2Q is still very usable today. FWIW, a pair of 2.8GHz dual-core paxvilles (netburst P4/xeon) is still very usable today....never underestimate old hardware!

Definitely

To me it's not usable, single core CPU's just don't work with modern demands.
But of course it depends what you use it for, and how you define useful.
I have a Thinkpad T40 with XP that works great to mess with my car.
Of course taking it online is a whole different cup of tea...
All tools have their specific uses.
I just feel a Pentium 4 never was good at anything, not back then and certainly not now.
That's my 0.02SEK worth

Hyper Threading definitely helps, but I see your point. This isn't a main workstation or anything, it's a test. And, P4s are still plenty capable of many tasks.

[stj]

Re: What is a Pentium 4 capable of in 2016?

Wow! Usable on a 700MHz P3? I will check out Vector, sounds interesting.

it's an IBM T23 with 768meg of ram.
dont try to use vector with 256 - it would run fine - but for some strange reason, it wouldnt shutdown.

so i added this:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/161186925448

[Pentium4]

Re: What is a Pentium 4 capable of in 2016?

I wouldn't. But I do have a Pentium III 850-M laptop sitting around with 512MB. I could fire that thing back up. And wow that RAM is cheap!

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: What is a Pentium 4 capable of in 2016?

Yeah, it has an unlocked multiplier. I can't seem to up it on this board though A decent OC would be nice. Even like 4.26GHz would make a difference and up the bandwidth as well.

Tried ThrottleStop? Edit: That program came about in the C2D era, dunno if it'll work, but you can give it a shot. Of course, if you absolutely cannot up the multi (even tho you should be able to), there's standard old fashioned FSB overclocking... That's all i had to work with on that Celeron, and it went quite far.

I got up to 4.4GHz actually but i was limited by temperature, as a stock Pentium D cooler was all i had around at that time. Also, fun fact, the 2.80GHz Celeron D went a lot higher than a 3.06GHz did. Interesting how the lower binned part did better with OC. This was on an eVGA nForce 530-based board IIRC.

[kc8adu]

Re: What is a Pentium 4 capable of in 2016?

running a t43 thinkpad for device programming,2 way radio,pcm,plc,ect programming.
only one i have with decent speed and works well with fussy software like johnson controls hvac pro,cummins insight,old icom stuff.freedos and xp.
i service lots of stuff containing old p4 cpu.
just had an anca cnc box in for rebuild.gotta be the worst choice in cpu in this sardine packed unit.

[keeney123]

Re: What is a Pentium 4 capable of in 2016?

This computer running XP could run as fast as my old dell desktop running a i5 with Windows 7


NEW Dell Dimension XPS Desktop Computer Pentium 4 540 3.2GHz/1GB RAM/250GB #2

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: What is a Pentium 4 capable of in 2016?

i block javascript and images on my browser and my p4 northwood still loads pages fast. i only whitelist or enable it on certain websites that require javascript to display the page right. a good adblock plugin and hosts file also helps to block unnecessary ads and content that slow down the webpage loading.

also, those of u who think the p4 was poor at everything, i'd like to point out that the p4 did quite well in mpeg2 video+audio recording and encoding. i also use a p4 for htpc purposes and for watching/recording tv. still works great for sdtv and 720p hdtv content. only 1080i hdtv is a drag...

the point is that if u dont know how to optimise your system and the way the software runs. even an extreme overclock 5ghz cpu is going to be slow...