Like some help on picking the right INTEL CPU ?

[leo888]

Laterly I was doing some search to build a new computer but I came across the processor which intel offer a few same speed but different naming, this is very confusing as to which to pick, any help guys.

What is the different between INTEL Pentium 4 Northwood Vs. Prescott ? Which is better off in turn of performance and stablity and most important which one give off more heat ?

[bombledmonk]

Prescott will give off much more heat. And at the moment It offers no performance advantage at all. The new Intel naming system of 520, 530, etc. is only for the newest intel socket (T i think?). A 3.0 Ghz or 3.2c (northwood) will probably be the best for a cool machine. Stability is not really a factor with either of them.

[Trophy1]

I just bought the Intel P4 2.2 from newegg for $114 shipped.
It was an upgrade over the Intel Celeron 1.7.

Make sure you get the right CPU that will work with your motherboard.

The P4 2.2 was highest I could get for the motherboard I have.

[johnnyis42]

prescott gave off more heat when used in motherboards specifically designed to handle northwood processors. this is now fixed with new iterations of motherboards witht he correct specifications of voltage regulators for the prescott bassed cpu's.

the main difference between the northwood and prescott chips are as folows:

northwood-
512k L2 cache
SSE2 support
socket 478 only
400mhz, 533 mhz, 800 mhz front side bus supported

prescott-
1 Mb L2 cache
SSE3 support added
socket 478 and LGA (no pins) 775 form factors supported
533mhz and 800mhz, soon 1066 mhz front side bus supported

finding an LGA 775 board with an AGP slot on it can be tricky, as i know they exist, but when i look for them online i cannot seem to find them. i have seen them ont he shelf in retail stores, however. you run a chance of the heat problem only with socket 478 boards and prescott chips, however if you do your research you can assure the motherboard is a later revision with the newer voltage regulators that take care of that problem. problem at that point is that you may never be able to upgrade your chip beyond this generation of chips, since the later round of prescotts will most likely all be LGA 775.

[Christian-Comp]

I don't know if this makes any difference, but I recently put together a system with a P4 Prescott 2.8ghz/1mb and an ASUS - P4PE2-X motherboard...
Upon initially installing the CPU read 52C, however after doing everything I needed to build the system, installed software, and closed up the case, it was a steady 47C. Better than what I expected. Didn't get over that either.