3.4 northwood performance

[fluux]

Hi

You may have seen my post about northwoods and prescotts and which to buy, well I bought the 3.4 nortwood.

Running a few tests on it, I'm not too impressed.

My 3dmark score for a 2.4 400fsb p4 overclocked to 2.8 was 5046. For the new 3.4 it's 5147. This doesn't seem like much of an increase? Am i right to be conerned that it's not performing correctly?

Also the temps after playing ten mins of Battlefield vietnam were at 60c, and case temp 31c, this worried me quite alot :eek:

Any thoughts?

(Will return tonight and reply to any posts)

[Kanavit]

well, don't use 3dmark03 for cpu dependancy tests, use 3dmark2001 or Aquamark3. 3dmark03 is gpu dependant.

[Ravilj]

What cooling have you got on it?

[SPL15]

I can tell you that the actual hardware is 75% of how good things perform in a computer and the other 25% is how the user impliments and tweaks it for performance.

I had a 2.6C OC'd to 3.3Ghz which was the maximum stable speed and got mediocre benches (10,000 Aquamark3 CPU). I fine tuned everything and did my homework on how to do things correctly and I got to 3.5 and got decent CPU sores in scores in Aquamark 3 (11500 about). I fine tuned things more and got 3.6 GHz with the 2.6 on water.

I have an AMD FX-53 and a Pentium 4 3.2Ghz and the Pentium system SMOKES the amd when compared against maximum Overclocked speeds.

If everything is running 100% stock, yes the AMD is notciably faster, but Tuned and tweaked My P4 OC's to 4.3GHz 100% stable while my FX-53 only Gets to 2.45GHz stable. The only bench the FX gets better in is 3dmark01se... Big Whup... My pentium does everything I want it to do faster.

It's all about implementation. Your P4 3.4Ghz Processor has a lot of untapped ability that you obvoiusly havent tapped. The only bad thing about your 3.4 is that you are going to be hard pressed to get the FSB bandwidth that a lower speed P4 would have gotten you.

[vapourit]

Originally posted by fluux


Also the temps after playing ten mins of Battlefield vietnam were at 60c, and case temp 31c, this worried me quite alot :eek:



Don't buy a prescott any time soon then!! ;)

[charlie]

warm room? Bad cooling? TIM?

[SPL15]

If your CPU and case are running that hot, you got some serious cooling issues.

Think of it this way. Big powerful engines run hot. If your cooling system isnt up to the task of cooling a 504 Cubic Inch big block and your engine blows or doesnt perform well because of heat issues, you better not say geez that engine was sure a piece of shut.

I dont know about your cooling system, but even if you got a aftermarket heatsink, doesnt mean it performs better than stock. And how it is implimented has much to do with how it is working.

Also, if you got 122399890 fans on your case and they are all blowing air in, you will get high case temps. You need to map out how and where you want air to flow through your case. I see lots of cases with 8 fans and they stil get 80F+ temps for their case. My AMD system I got 3 low noise case fans and I get 69F constant case temp no matter what the CPU speed. I have two in front blowing air into the case onto the harddrives. and one in back near the CPU exasting air, Also the power supply exuasts air.

Lower them temps!! I never got more than 105F CPU temp clocked at 3.5Ghz at 1.725Volts on air cooling (Modified zalman 7000Cu). Now I get more than -36C for CPU temp With a modified Mach I. Remember heat is any electronic component's worst enemy. MTBF is directly related to the amount of heat and heat cycling. Reduce these and increase life expectancy of your shyt