revive my socket 478 -- 3.2EE or 3.4E?

It's just about time to upgrade my CPU. My motherboard is an ASUS P4P800 Deluxe, and I'm currently running a Pentium 4 Northwood 2.8GHz @ 3.31GHz. Ideally, I would like to get a 3.4GHz Extreme Edition with the 2mb L3 cache. But those processors are still ~$395 from what I see. Too rich for my blood.


So here's the question.. should I get a 3.4GHz Prescott, or a 3.2GHz Extreme Edition CPU? They are $145 and $175 respectively. Right now I'm leaning towards to Prescott simply because of the price difference. Keep in mind that either of these will be overclocked. I've read that the Prescotts run hot, which might be a problem when overclocking, but I think the EEs get pretty hot too..


I'm really just looking for the best performer.

 

You won't see that much improvement for the money. I think you should save your money and put it towards a current system, say a Core2 Duo or AMD X2 at the very least. BTW, sorry for not answering your exact query.

 

I would like to have a new system, but I can't justify sinking any more than about $200 in parts. And I don't think would get me very far. This computer that I'm currently on would outperform anything I could put together for $200.

I don't realistically plan on building a new system for at least two more years, and so far this PC (that I built in 2003) has handled everything I've thrown at it. I'm just looking for a little extra edge in the newer games and the CPU is holding me back.



If you don't think the performance increase I would get from a 3.4E is worth $145, then what if I got a 3.2GHz Northwood for $52? That's just a straight 400MHz for $52. My only concern with that is if the chip doesn't overclock well then I'm in the same boat only $52 poorer.

 

$200 buys you a Pentium Dual-Core E2180 (NOT a Pentium D, then Dual-Cores are stripped Core 2 Duos) , like a GA-P945-DS3, 2GB DDR2 800... that is, if you don't need a new GPU.

 

I don't think the Dual-Core comes in a 478 pin version??

 

i would just sit tight with the one you have now, and then go all new when you are ready...the dual-core way outperformes any p4 you can throw at it.

i went from a p4 3.0ghz to Core2duo e6750, and there's a huge improvement. I would believe it's a lot more than going from one p4 to another.
and the prices have really come down.

 

no, but the P945 motherboard I listed supports it very well.


if you are gonna do it, I suggest waiting till the end of November for the Core i7's to come out. the price on the Core 2 Duos will drop drastically