Opinion on P4 3.0E overclock

[crypto1300]

I just upgraded my board & CPU from 845PE & P4 2.53 to a 875 & P4 3.0E and was wondering if anyone had experience overclocking these new prescott CPU's.

I'm thinking of a modest FSB overlock of 213MHz to bring memory to 426MHz & CPU to 3.2GHz approx. with stock cooling. Just wondering if such an overclock is safe. Providing my memory passes Prime95 stress test do you guys think the CPU will handle it?

 

[Fox5]

I just upgraded my board & CPU from 845PE & P4 2.53 to a 875 & P4 3.0E and was wondering if anyone had experience overclocking these new prescott CPU's.

I'm thinking of a modest FSB overlock of 213MHz to bring memory to 426MHz & CPU to 3.2GHz approx. with stock cooling. Just wondering if such an overclock is safe. Providing my memory passes Prime95 stress test do you guys think the CPU will handle it?

I'm not so sure if stock cooling will be good enough, but 3.2ghz is definetely a pretty safe overclock for that cpu. However, prescotts do generate a lot of heat, you may not be able to get away with stock cooling much higher.....I've heard around 3.5ghz-3.6ghz with a prescott cpu on stock cooling = 1 dead computer.

 

[crypto1300]

I just upgraded my board & CPU from 845PE & P4 2.53 to a 875 & P4 3.0E and was wondering if anyone had experience overclocking these new prescott CPU's.

I'm thinking of a modest FSB overlock of 213MHz to bring memory to 426MHz & CPU to 3.2GHz approx. with stock cooling. Just wondering if such an overclock is safe. Providing my memory passes Prime95 stress test do you guys think the CPU will handle it?

I'm not so sure if stock cooling will be good enough, but 3.2ghz is definetely a pretty safe overclock for that cpu. However, prescotts do generate a lot of heat, you may not be able to get away with stock cooling much higher.....I've heard around 3.5ghz-3.6ghz with a prescott cpu on stock cooling = 1 dead computer.

Thanks for the advice. I ran the system through Prime95 overnight successfully, but the case (with 4 fans) feels very warm to the touch. I will check temps next to make sure it's not too high.

 

[AAlcHemY]

No offence, but why do you oc a 3.0Ghz cpu to 3.2Ghz ? The 7% increase is only noticeble in benchmarks.

As long as the temp stays below 60°C full load, there is nothing to worry about.

 

[Fox5]

No offence, but why do you oc a 3.0Ghz cpu to 3.2Ghz ? The 7% increase is only noticeble in benchmarks.

As long as the temp stays below 60°C full load, there is nothing to worry about.

What if you have vsync on? Most games only have double buffering, so what if that little boost of performance is enough to get you to a stable 60 fps instead of 45?

 

[crypto1300]

No offence, but why do you oc a 3.0Ghz cpu to 3.2Ghz ? The 7% increase is only noticeble in benchmarks.

As long as the temp stays below 60°C full load, there is nothing to worry about.

Well, it looks like I'll be staying at 3.0GHz because I've seen 63 degrees at 3.0GHz under full load in some long UT2004 gaming situations.

Do you think this is safe?

 

[Fox5]

No offence, but why do you oc a 3.0Ghz cpu to 3.2Ghz ? The 7% increase is only noticeble in benchmarks.

As long as the temp stays below 60°C full load, there is nothing to worry about.

Well, it looks like I'll be staying at 3.0GHz because I've seen 63 degrees at 3.0GHz under full load in some long UT2004 gaming situations.

Do you think this is safe?

It's definetely pushing the limits, why not slap down $20 and get a better heatsink/fan?

 

[crypto1300]

No offence, but why do you oc a 3.0Ghz cpu to 3.2Ghz ? The 7% increase is only noticeble in benchmarks.

As long as the temp stays below 60°C full load, there is nothing to worry about.

Well, it looks like I'll be staying at 3.0GHz because I've seen 63 degrees at 3.0GHz under full load in some long UT2004 gaming situations.

Do you think this is safe?

It's definetely pushing the limits, why not slap down $20 and get a better heatsink/fan?

What type would you recommend?

 

[ANova]

http://support.intel.com/support/processors/pentium4/sb/cs-007999.htm

 

[Fox5]

No offence, but why do you oc a 3.0Ghz cpu to 3.2Ghz ? The 7% increase is only noticeble in benchmarks.

As long as the temp stays below 60°C full load, there is nothing to worry about.

Well, it looks like I'll be staying at 3.0GHz because I've seen 63 degrees at 3.0GHz under full load in some long UT2004 gaming situations.

Do you think this is safe?

It's definetely pushing the limits, why not slap down $20 and get a better heatsink/fan?

What type would you recommend?

Oh excuse me, I forgot you had a prescott, I believe 60 is still fine for a prescott. Not too sure about good p4 coolers, but the vantec aeroflow 1 and 2 are pretty good coolers, and pretty quiet.(do they fit the prescott though?) They're not the absolute best coolers though, but one of the best for performance versus noise.

 

[crypto1300]

Fox5,

Yeah, I went for the Prescott version because the differences weren't really dramatic between it & the P4C besides the extra heat. Plus, they were the same price... what the heck. Hopefully the SSE3 instructions will enable faster video encoding times eventually.

 

[Fox5]

Fox5,

Yeah, I went for the Prescott version because the differences weren't really dramatic between it & the P4C besides the extra heat. Plus, they were the same price... what the heck. Hopefully the SSE3 instructions will enable faster video encoding times eventually.

The heat would be a big enough deal for me, especially if I was overclocking. Heck, even the heat from the normal one would be too much, I'd pay the extra 20% and get a mobile version.(assuming they work the same way as the athlons)

 

[ANova]

I wouldn't get a Prescott at this time. Later on down the road (Q3) looks promising though. The 3.7 GHz Prescott will feature a 1066 MHz bus, 2 MB L2 cache, down clocking and power-saving features, IA-32e and more.

 

[crypto1300]

I wouldn't get a Prescott at this time. Later on down the road (Q3) looks promising though. The 3.7 GHz Prescott will feature a 1066 MHz bus, 2 MB L2 cache, down clocking and power-saving features, IA-32e and more.

Yeah I know but for some reason my P4 2.53 was killing me with it's single channel i845pe based memory controller. I think the speed upgrade is quite an improvement actually, and I didn't want to wait until the end of the year.

I'm not a benchmark freek & UT2004 & Far Cry run great on the new rig with max details without AA+AF.

 

[mustrum]

Go for a Thermalright full copper Heatsink and apply a silent 92mm fan (Papst is 19 db) on it. It will run a LOT cooler and you can hardly hear it.

 

[mczak]

I wouldn't get a Prescott at this time. Later on down the road (Q3) looks promising though. The 3.7 GHz Prescott will feature a 1066 MHz bus, 2 MB L2 cache, down clocking and power-saving features, IA-32e and more.

Huh? Where did you see that? 1066Mhz FSB sure (not that it will really help performance). Haven't heard of plans that intel wants to enable power-saving features on their desktop cpus, but I guess it's desperatly needed. 2MB L2 cache? IA-32e? Sounds more like a server version (nocona) to me in that timeframe...

 

[ANova]

I wouldn't get a Prescott at this time. Later on down the road (Q3) looks promising though. The 3.7 GHz Prescott will feature a 1066 MHz bus, 2 MB L2 cache, down clocking and power-saving features, IA-32e and more.

Huh? Where did you see that? 1066Mhz FSB sure (not that it will really help performance). Haven't heard of plans that intel wants to enable power-saving features on their desktop cpus, but I guess it's desperatly needed. 2MB L2 cache? IA-32e? Sounds more like a server version (nocona) to me in that timeframe...

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20040516122935.html

 

[mczak]

I wouldn't get a Prescott at this time. Later on down the road (Q3) looks promising though. The 3.7 GHz Prescott will feature a 1066 MHz bus, 2 MB L2 cache, down clocking and power-saving features, IA-32e and more.

Huh? Where did you see that? 1066Mhz FSB sure (not that it will really help performance). Haven't heard of plans that intel wants to enable power-saving features on their desktop cpus, but I guess it's desperatly needed. 2MB L2 cache? IA-32e? Sounds more like a server version (nocona) to me in that timeframe...

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20040516122935.html

That's not Q3. It says "likely to come in Q4 2004" - which means if you're lucky you can buy them at the beginning of next year...
Also note that the article doesn't say that the chips will have x86_64 - Otellini says they are in a position to enable it, not that they will actually do so at that time, which is a different statement.
For Q3, the only thing planned is just another P4EE - 3.46Ghz with 1066Mhz FSB, and I'm sure it's still Northwood-based (2MB cache wouldn't help the Prescott which already has 1MB cache much for performance, therefore the old P4EE 3.4Ghz would likely beat it overall, the article even states it's not prescott based). That's kinda disappointing for that timeframe IMHO.

 

[ANova]

That's not Q3. It says "likely to come in Q4 2004" - which means if you're lucky you can buy them at the beginning of next year...

Many sources are saying Intel plans on introducing x86-64 enabled Pentium 4s as early as August 21st. If you have the money, I doubt you'll have much trouble buying one. Most people can't or don't have $600+ to spend on a processor.

Also note that the article doesn't say that the chips will have x86_64 - Otellini says they are in a position to enable it, not that they will actually do so at that time, which is a different statement.

Oh they will, the new Xeons based on the Nocona core will be first, which are slated for a June 27th launch. The Pentium 4s based on the Prescott core and LGA775 won't be far off.

For Q3, the only thing planned is just another P4EE - 3.46Ghz with 1066Mhz FSB, and I'm sure it's still Northwood-based (2MB cache wouldn't help the Prescott which already has 1MB cache much for performance, therefore the old P4EE 3.4Ghz would likely beat it overall, the article even states it's not prescott based). That's kinda disappointing for that timeframe IMHO.

The P4XE is nothing new, Intel is just milking it. And yes, it still uses the Northwood core. The 3.7 GHz version of the Prescott launching in late Q3 or Q4 will feature a 1066 MHz bus, NX, AAC, 2 MB L2 cache and although this article doesn't explicitly state it, IA-32e is almost a definite as well.