Prescott vs. Northwood

[Sean]

Okay, so I'm buying a new processor, and I have two options at the same price: One is a Retail Prescott @ 3.0 ghz and an 800 mhz FSB w/ HT. The other is an OEM Northwood @ 3.0 ghz and an 800 mhz FSB w/ HT.

I've heard good and bad things about both; anyone have an opinion?
BTW, I'm going to be overclocking it, so heat is a pretty important factor.

Edit - Here's where they be
Prescott:http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=19-116-171&DEPA=0
Northwood:http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=19-116-163&depa=1

 

[Asus]

Well, personally I would perfer the Northwood.
It's a better overall performer and it has almost the same chances of OCing high as the Prescott with less heat and power consumption.

The Prescott has the best shot at OCing high although you must have a good cooler to obtain them and it will consume more power while giving more heat (arn't they gracious). It doesn't perform quite as well in different applications. So if you manage to OC the Prescott 100MHz faster than the Northwood, theres a pretty good chance the Northwood will still perform better in games or at least match it in A/V work.

Then again, I don't own either.

Performance
Look at "Pentium 4 3.2 GHz (DDR400)" vs "Pentium 4 3.2E GHz (DDR400)" The first being Northwood and the second (E) being Prescott.

CPU Power Consumption

 

[Sean]

Hmm... I'm leaning Northwood now, but there's one final factor here: the Prescott has a bigger L2 cache than the Northwood. (1024 vs 512) In what situations will this differance be noticiable, if at all?

Also, Athlon 64s are kind of hobbled under a 32bit OS like Windows though, aren't they?

 

[Asus]

Hmm... I'm leaning Northwood now, but there's one final factor here: the Prescott has a bigger L2 cache than the Northwood. (1024 vs 512) In what situations will this differance be noticiable, if at all?

The L2 cache was raised to improve the performance on a poor design choice. They chose to raise the number of pipelines in the CPU so they could clock it higher. Now if the pipeline is wrong it takes extra time to clear it out and start over. That's what the L2 cache is ment to cover up. It does OK but you can still see the performance difference between Northwood and Prescott.

What's funny is the soul reason they chose to increase the pipelines was to help increase clock speeds yet they have been struggling beyond 3.4GHz. Those parts are mass production now and in supply but they are stilling dealing with those issues now at 3.8GHz, seeing as they cannot release a 4GHz still.

Also, Athlon 64s are kind of hobbled under a 32bit OS like Windows though, aren't they?

What do ya mean? The performance you see is working in 32bit. In order to use 64bits on the Athlon 64's you need to run a 64bit OS.

 

[Sean]

What do ya mean? The performance you see is working in 32bit. In order to use 64bits on the Athlon 64's you need to run a 64bit OS.

lol, that's what I meant: you can't use the full potential of the cpu in Windows. It seems to me, therefore, like wasted effort for the mass market. (For now, anyway )

So it seems like the Northwood is the better choice. I guess I'll go with that, unless someone can come up with a better solution for $200.

By the way, My current cpu is 1.8 running at 2.4, with an extra 0.01v, and that's pretty stable - usually 35-50ºC. How much can I crank that new Northwood up before I start getting problems? Any reccomendations on heatsinks?

 

[Nex321]

Thermalright XP-120 with Deltas 120mm 220 CFM Fan

 

[[Matt]]

even when the athlon 64 CPU's are running in 32-bit mode they're still faster than any equivalent P4.