Intel Pentium 4 1.6A Overclocking!

[Albinus]

No i think Intel realized it actually needed a 300A again to bring back some popularity again in performance minded communities AND in price minded communities

My sentiments exactly..... what irritates me is many (not all mind you!) AMD enthusiasts have forgot or are too new to realise that Intel was the overclocker's best friend prior to the Socket A Athlon/Duron. If Intel can pull off the "300A" trick again, it will be good for all concerned :)

[JediAgent]

Give a hand to the man at the podium....

[zeradul]

Then again, with Intel's prices, you better be able to overclock, just to Approach an equal bang for your buck compared with an athlon...

If I spend 100$ on an Athlon, and You spend 150$ on an Intel, you better be able to get it to 150% of my clock speed, JUST to keep pace with my deal (un-overclocked)

[Mr.Tweak]

You aren't a AMD fan by any chance are you? :)

[zeradul]

I am just pointing out simple math....

I am a big fan of intel, as well as AMD. We are very lucky to have both, because it keeps them both on their toes, and gets us technology asap.......

66% of my computers are intel based, and my official opinion on AMD is that everything they touched in the consumer PC market PRE-ATHLON was pure trash. (compared to the pentium 2's of the time...)

[Anonymous]

Then again, with Intel's prices, you better be able to overclock, just to Approach an equal bang for your buck compared with an athlon...

If I spend 100$ on an Athlon, and You spend 150$ on an Intel, you better be able to get it to 150% of my clock speed, JUST to keep pace with my deal (un-overclocked)

You can argue this with me, but here's how I see it (mind you I have over 10 oc'd athlons, and this is my first intel in years):

intel MSI 845 Ultra w/ ata133 raid, usb2.0, etc.
intel P4 1.6a w/ HSF, OC's to 2250 EASY
$270 including shipping

AMD Athlon XP 1900+, can't OC without pain in the ass
Gigabyte VA-7RVXP with all the godies
$298 including shipping
no, WAIT... I forgot.. oh no... it'll melt!!! So, I get a decent HSF for $25 including shipping...
now I'm around $325 and still not as fast as my intel counterpart.

At this point, with the 1.6a, intel is the price/performance leader.

Also, when I count the cost of the number of chipped proc cores (I know, my fault, but hey, HSF's suck, m/b's suck, when you go through that many, cores get chipped), and burned procs cuz of HSF's having fallen off (yes, this really does happen in the real world), I'd have been better off switching back to intel a while ago. I'm also SICK of the noise of Athlons. It was a great run for a while, guys, but for now, my money's back on intel.

price/performance, it's cheaper
it's quieter
heatspreader protects it from chips
proc doesn't fry without a heatsink
-Bill

[JediAgent]

Price/performance leader?
Even with the 1.6A thats Bulcrap.
For one, 99% of the computing world cant overclock, so your precious 1.6A has been belittled to what?..... not 2.5GHZ, not 2.25GHz, 1.6GHz. Match any XP (even ones at a lower clock) and they will beat a 1.6A in most any benchmark.

Price next... Pricewatch says ... $133 and the equally clocked Athlon XP1900 ... $142, an $11 dollar difference. But, whats that? Ah yes, the XP1600 starts at $93, and even thou some of us are not fond of the AMD numbering system, the XP1600 is either better than or equal to a 1.6A.

Oh yes, the previous post figure? Well first off, its not always the best idea to be comparing motherboards and shipping into the pricing equation. Most ppl will be buying different motherboards and thus, have a very different pricing scheme. And we're not comparing bang for buck motherboards, we are comparing procs.
If you wanted to compare CPU/RAM/Mobo systems may i remind you that Intel has only recently allowed us to use SDRAM and DDRAM on the P4. Or that its not at its full potential without spending he money for RDRAM.

So, what have we learned today? Unless you have the ability to pull every ounce of performance out of that 1.6A you might as well spend your money on an XP1600, and see if a local PC store can offer you a quiet fan, which is definately not going to eat into all of your $40 savings.

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Edit: I say "us" back there because I plan on buying a P4 1.6A, only because i want to overclock it. Remember i did say that unless you have the ability to O/C its not worth it, nor would here be the authority to deem it Price/Performance leader.

[Anonymous]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by JediAgent
[B]Price/performance leader?
Even with the 1.6A thats Bulcrap.
For one, 99% of the computing world cant overclock, so your precious 1.6A has been belittled to what?..... not 2.5GHZ, not 2.25GHz, 1.6GHz. Match any XP (even ones at a lower clock) and they will beat a 1.6A in most any benchmark.

Well, I guess I thought I was posting on tweaktown, not meaktown. Not to bust on you, bud, but I'm ASSUMING we're talking about what's the best bang for the buck in an EASILY overclocked scenario... the P4, that's ONE BIOS setting and I'm there. That's not bad. As for the price, I don't care about pricewatch prices, shipping is always ridiculous. My prices are from newegg.com including shipping, which is 95% of the time the cheapest overall place on the net. Your prices for Athlons are off. Either way, I'm pretty damn happy with this 1.6a and will be buying more. Best of luck with yours. :)
-Bill

[zeradul]

3 and the equally clocked Athlon XP1900 ... 2, an dollar difference. But, whats that? Ah yes, the XP1600 starts at ,

Well, lookie there... If I spend 93 dollars, and you spend 133, then you better be able to get 43% above and beyond an equivalent Clock speed. And since a 1.8 P4 performs EQUAL to a 1.4 XP , then you would need to get to

1.43 * 1.8 = 2.574 GHtz and be stable just to have TIED me for bang for the buck....

OOO and just think of the heat sink you'd need to beat my un-overclocked athlon... Ouch...

[Anonymous]

Well, lookie there... If I spend 93 dollars, and you spend 133, then you better be able to get 43% above and beyond an equivalent Clock speed. And since a 1.8 P4 performs EQUAL to a 1.4 XP , then you would need to get to

1.43 * 1.8 = 2.574 GHtz and be stable just to have TIED me for bang for the buck....

OOO and just think of the heat sink you'd need to beat my un-overclocked athlon... Ouch...

Well, lookie there... I KNOW we're ALL in love with AMD, but PLEASE, let's get as CLOSE to apples and apples as we can. Now, using your example, you've taken my price for a retail P4 with a nice, relatively quiet fan and compared it to some price you'll never get (quote me the shipping for that $93) on an OEM, no HSF unit. Try my math, tell me if you disagree (or find it cheaper, cuz I'd love to buy).
From newegg.com:
AMD Athlon XP 1600+/266 FSB PROCESSOR CPU - RETAIL 1600+/ 1.40GHz, Fed-ex Free shipping: $125
Pretty good price, comes with HSF, and the noise is tolerable.

Intel Pentium 4 1.6A GHz 512K Socket 478 Processor 400MHz Processor Bus- RETAIL version. With / Heatsin & Fan. Fed-ex shipping $7, total: $140

So, I'll go with need atleast 1.8GHz P4, that's fine, sounds about right.
Difference in total cost: 12%
1.12 * 1.8 = 2.016GHz.

Sorry, in an EASILY overclocked scenario, intel wins. Hands down. I know there are a LOT of different ways to look at this, but I'm a lazy overclocker. If I can change my FSB to 140, get over 2.2GHz with stock cooling that isn't blowing my ears out, I'm pretty damn happy. I have enough systems to run all kinds of benchmarks until I'm benchmark-blue in the face. I prefer applications, and the p4 @ 2.2x GHz beats my 1.55GHz Athlon by about 2-10% on pretty much everything. I like it. Especially considering all the other reasons I listed above. If you don't, that's fine, but please don't tell me it doesn't compete in price when OC'd, because it does.. and wins.
-Bill

[Anonymous]

I have a 1.6a running at 2.6Ghz and under 55C full load with a volcano 7+.. wow 1Ghz .. if this isnt what we look for in chips ??

To tell you the truth, intel rushed the release of the northwoods to take the speed crown from AMD (did it win ?? well let you figure it out), but you will find that the northwood core is really designed for a 533 FSB.. but since no RDRAM was currently avail for that spec, nor any motherboard .. they just released em at 400.. hence they overclock like no morrow!!

Anyway I'm satisfied with my intel, my previous AMD got crushed when i was stuffing about with diff fans...

Anyway my 2c

REMEMBER competition is our friend .. and as such best of luck to AMD!!!

[JediAgent]

So, I'll go with need atleast 1.8GHz P4, that's fine, sounds about right.
Difference in total cost: 12%
1.12 * 1.8 = 2.016GHz.

Serious question - why did we throw in the 1.8GHz part?
Thats not the "easily overclockable" chip, the 1.6A is. Or did i miss something and Intel started making 1.8GHz procs out of the Northwood core?

And BTW lazy overclocking is not the way to go - if that were the case, nobody would have discovered the pencil trick that got so many of our Athlons at such a high speed.

Oh and its obvious WE ARE ALL pulling prices out of our arses.

[Shepps]

calm down ladies, nough of the slapping.

[Anonymous]

Serious question - why did we throw in the 1.8GHz part?
Thats not the "easily overclockable" chip, the 1.6A is. Or did i miss something and Intel started making 1.8GHz procs out of the Northwood core?

And BTW lazy overclocking is not the way to go - if that were the case, nobody would have discovered the pencil trick that got so many of our Athlons at such a high speed.

Oh and its obvious WE ARE ALL pulling prices out of our arses.

The 1.8GHz was the assumed baseline of a P4 in comparison to a 1.4GHz Athlon (e.g. a 1.4GHz Athlon will run most benchmarks at about the same spec as a 1.8GHz P4). So, we're saying we have to get "x" percent above 1.8GHz (doesn't matter what chip we start with, but we're talking about the 1.6a here) to be "outperforming" the 1.4GHz Athlon, which I would say is an agreeable aproximation.

I didn't say lazy overclocking is THE way to go, just that I'll leave the hardcore stuff for others who have the time to do it, and I'll focus on the "pick" of the day. Pencil was awesome, 1.6a is awesome, just don't ask me to mask bridges and start soldering, you know?

Oh, and it's obvious all the prices quoted have been pulled out of one's arse (or pricewatch.com, same thing, just about), except, of course, for mine, which are/were all purchasable at that price as of the day I posted them. newegg.com

p.s. there definitely is a 1.8a (Northwood) P4.

"Intel Pentium4 1.8A GHz 512K Socket 478 Processor 400MHz Processor Bus- Retail Box version with Fan (CPU ONLY NO RAMBUS RAM) Model#: BX80532P1800D Special FedEx Saver Shipping $6.95" $183 <---- newegg.com
-Bill

[JediAgent]

p.s. there definitely is a 1.8a (Northwood) P4.

"Intel Pentium4 1.8A GHz 512K Socket 478 Processor 400MHz Processor Bus- Retail Box version with Fan (CPU ONLY NO RAMBUS RAM) Model#: BX80532P1800D Special FedEx Saver Shipping .95" 3 <---- newegg.com

Are you sure thats a northwood core, because i think there are P4's with 478 socket that still arent northwoods.

Well i guess the next real question is how does an overclocked 1.6A without RDRAM fair against an unlocked and overclocked XP using within 7% of the same pricetag (cpu/mobo/ram) WITHOUT shipping because i still think that is too variable to test.

We should get a TT writer to do it... hehe... j/k