Which p4 chipset to get?

  • Thread starter Thread starter TheKeith
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TheKeith

well, I'm finally ready to build a new computer after not having built
one since 2001. I'm a bit behind on all the latest hardware and confused
about what to get. I'm pretty much settled on a p4 3+ GHz, but don't
know whether to go with the new 775 socket with one of the intel 9xx
chipsets or one of the older 875 chipsets with the 478 socket. I've been
reading some about the differences and how the 9xx chipsets don't really
offer any practical performance improvements for the time, but still I
can't see getting an older technology when I don't have to worry at all
about backward-compatibility. All hardware including the HD, will be
purchased new.

Can someone explain what this pci max (I think it's called) is all
about? Is it supposed to compete with AGP or something? Thanks.


Keith
 
Socket 775 is a "land grid array" package, without pins. It may be good for
fewer CPU removals and re-insertions that the old ZIF (zero insertion force)
sockets, but I doubt this is relevant to most people.

If you get one of the boards that require DDR2, you may have to pay a higher
price for the RAM than you would DDR. I have the impression that you won't
get any performance improvement with DDR2 over DDR; in fact, an 875 chipset
board with low-latency DDR may outperform the first-generation DDR2 systems.
(I have no personal experience in this matter, though.)

One nice thing about some of the newer chipsets is that they support NCQ
(native command queuing) SATA drives. I doubt that the performance
improvements with NCQ will be life-altering, but it may be a good thing to
have if the cost isn't excessive. NCQ SATA drives aren't common yet; the
only ones I recall are made by Seagate (7200.7 series).

PCI max? No, it's PCI Express. (This is not to be confused with PCI-X, which
is entirely different, and not seen in ordinary desktop PCs.) One of the
first application of PCI Express is to replace the AGP graphics standard.
PCI Express is also supposed to lead to new peripheral cards that have
higher data rates than the current 32 bit PCI cards, but I know of none that
are on the market yet. I've given you little information, but it's all that
I know. (It may be a bit *more* than I know. I hope that I've gotten it
straight.)

It is also possible to buy Socket T (aka Socket 775) boards that use all old
technology, except for the socket itself. For example: the Asus P5P800 uses
the old Intel 965PE chipset. It's a good chipset, but you might better get a
P4C800 (875 chipset) board and a Socket 478 CPU.

For my own purposes, my last build was a Socket 939 system (AMD Athlon 64).
I wanted to keep my fast AGP graphics card (nVidia Geforce 6800GT), but I'd
been bitten by the upgrade bug. The A64 runs well on plain old XP Home, and
I'm hoping for at least a modest improvement when the mass-market 64 bit
successor to XP appears next year. (I have downloaded the beta for it, but
have not set up a dual-boot installation yet.)

Address scrambled. Replace nkbob with bobkn.
 
TheKeith said:
well, I'm finally ready to build a new computer after not having built
one since 2001. I'm a bit behind on all the latest hardware and
confused about what to get. I'm pretty much settled on a p4 3+ GHz,
but don't know whether to go with the new 775 socket with one of the
intel 9xx chipsets or one of the older 875 chipsets with the 478
socket. I've been reading some about the differences and how the 9xx
chipsets don't really offer any practical performance improvements
for the time, but still I can't see getting an older technology when
I don't have to worry at all about backward-compatibility. All
hardware including the HD, will be purchased new.
Click to expand...

Well, the only real advantage of the new 9xx series chipsets is that they do
PCI-Express. Whether to get Socket 775 vs. 478, I'd say that normally it
would matter for upgrade purposes in the future. But frankly, I don't see
much long-term future left for the entire Pentium 4 series anymore. Intel is
in major trouble right now, because it can't dig anymore speed out of its
Pentium 4 anymore. It's been plagued with many fiascos, one after another
for the last several months.

First, it had to recall the brand new 9xx-series chipsets within days of
introducing it, because of a production flaw. Then it cancelled a
highly-publicized future Wi-Fi feature in the 9xx chipsets, which it had
previously announced with much fanfare. Then it announced that it was going
to increase the speed of its FSB from 800Mhz to 1066Mhz, but now it looks
like it's having a lot of trouble producing enough of those chips. It
announced that it would introduce a 4.0Ghz P4 by sometime earlier this year,
then later it said it would delay it to the end of the year, and now it's
completely cancelled that chip altogether. It may be even possible that the
next Intel processor will not be based on the Pentium 4, but on its mobile
Pentium-M processor (transferred over to the desktop). The Pentium-M
typically runs in the speed range of 1.7 to 2.2Ghz, right now. So you might
find yourself trading in a 3.6Ghz processor for a 2.5Ghz processor in the
future.

The highest speed Socket 478 processor is a 3.2Ghz part. The highest speed
Socket 775 may not be all that much higher, maybe at most 3.6Ghz for the
next several years. So you're not losing much speed sticking with Socket 478
if that's what you want. PCI-Express is still not all that popular yet.
Can someone explain what this pci max (I think it's called) is all
about? Is it supposed to compete with AGP or something? Thanks.
Click to expand...

You mean PCI Express? Yes, it's supposed to be a replacement for both PCI
and AGP. With PCIe you can have different kinds of slots, which they call 1X
slots for normal peripherals and 16X slots for video cards. The 1X slots are
about as fast as old-school PCI, except the bandwidth is not shared with
other slots, so the whole bandwidth belongs to each of the slots. The 16X is
supposedly about 4 times the bandwidth of AGP.

Most of the video cards that you can get for PCIe have shown precisely zero
improvement over their own AGP versions, in fact, you might find a few
tenths of a percentage /lower/ performance. That's because video to system
memory performance is a red-herring -- completely useless, nobody uses
system memory for video memory unless you have an integrated graphics
motherboard. So it made no difference whether you had a 1X, 2X, 4X or 8X AGP
slot, that particular feature was never used. And similarly, it'll never be
used in the newer PCIe slots.

However, one feature that might be useful in the future about PCIe is the
ability to use multiple high-speed 16X slots to have dual-video cards which
will double the performance of your video by sharing rendering duties.

Yousuf Khan
 
Yousuf said:
Well, the only real advantage of the new 9xx series chipsets is that they do
PCI-Express. Whether to get Socket 775 vs. 478, I'd say that normally it
would matter for upgrade purposes in the future. But frankly, I don't see
much long-term future left for the entire Pentium 4 series anymore. Intel is
in major trouble right now, because it can't dig anymore speed out of its
Pentium 4 anymore. It's been plagued with many fiascos, one after another
for the last several months.

First, it had to recall the brand new 9xx-series chipsets within days of
introducing it, because of a production flaw. Then it cancelled a
highly-publicized future Wi-Fi feature in the 9xx chipsets, which it had
previously announced with much fanfare. Then it announced that it was going
to increase the speed of its FSB from 800Mhz to 1066Mhz, but now it looks
like it's having a lot of trouble producing enough of those chips. It
announced that it would introduce a 4.0Ghz P4 by sometime earlier this year,
then later it said it would delay it to the end of the year, and now it's
completely cancelled that chip altogether. It may be even possible that the
next Intel processor will not be based on the Pentium 4, but on its mobile
Pentium-M processor (transferred over to the desktop). The Pentium-M
typically runs in the speed range of 1.7 to 2.2Ghz, right now. So you might
find yourself trading in a 3.6Ghz processor for a 2.5Ghz processor in the
future.

The highest speed Socket 478 processor is a 3.2Ghz part. The highest speed
Socket 775 may not be all that much higher, maybe at most 3.6Ghz for the
next several years. So you're not losing much speed sticking with Socket 478
if that's what you want. PCI-Express is still not all that popular yet.




You mean PCI Express? Yes, it's supposed to be a replacement for both PCI
and AGP. With PCIe you can have different kinds of slots, which they call 1X
slots for normal peripherals and 16X slots for video cards. The 1X slots are
about as fast as old-school PCI, except the bandwidth is not shared with
other slots, so the whole bandwidth belongs to each of the slots. The 16X is
supposedly about 4 times the bandwidth of AGP.

Most of the video cards that you can get for PCIe have shown precisely zero
improvement over their own AGP versions, in fact, you might find a few
tenths of a percentage /lower/ performance. That's because video to system
memory performance is a red-herring -- completely useless, nobody uses
system memory for video memory unless you have an integrated graphics
motherboard. So it made no difference whether you had a 1X, 2X, 4X or 8X AGP
slot, that particular feature was never used. And similarly, it'll never be
used in the newer PCIe slots.

However, one feature that might be useful in the future about PCIe is the
ability to use multiple high-speed 16X slots to have dual-video cards which
will double the performance of your video by sharing rendering duties.

Yousuf Khan
Click to expand...


Very informative, thanks very much. Thanks also to everyone else who
replied. It's too bad to hear about Intel's troubles (or is it?), but I
think I'm still going to go with the 915 chipset--it might not have much
of a future ahead of it, but in that case, I'll be able to take the
expensive DDR2 memory and the PCI-express video card with me to a future
system that requires those two things, correct?
 
Yousuf said:
TheKeith said:
well, I'm finally ready to build a new computer after not having built
one since 2001. I'm a bit behind on all the latest hardware and
confused about what to get. I'm pretty much settled on a p4 3+ GHz,
but don't know whether to go with the new 775 socket with one of the
intel 9xx chipsets or one of the older 875 chipsets with the 478
socket. I've been reading some about the differences and how the 9xx
chipsets don't really offer any practical performance improvements
for the time, but still I can't see getting an older technology when
I don't have to worry at all about backward-compatibility. All
hardware including the HD, will be purchased new.
Click to expand...


Well, the only real advantage of the new 9xx series chipsets is that they do
PCI-Express. Whether to get Socket 775 vs. 478, I'd say that normally it
would matter for upgrade purposes in the future. But frankly, I don't see
much long-term future left for the entire Pentium 4 series anymore. Intel is
in major trouble right now, because it can't dig anymore speed out of its
Pentium 4 anymore. It's been plagued with many fiascos, one after another
for the last several months. [snipped]
However, one feature that might be useful in the future about PCIe is the
ability to use multiple high-speed 16X slots to have dual-video cards which
will double the performance of your video by sharing rendering duties.

Yousuf Khan
Click to expand...

Very informative, thanks very much. Thanks also to everyone else who
replied. It's too bad to hear about Intel's troubles (or is it?), but I
think I'm still going to go with the 915 chipset--it might not have much
of a future ahead of it, but in that case, I'll be able to take the
expensive DDR2 memory and the PCI-express video card with me to a future
system that requires those two things, correct?
Click to expand...

If I had an "average system cycle time" of nearly 4 years, I wouldn't bank on
salvaging *anything* from one to the next. Buy for today through a couple of
years at best.

And don't plan on you having found "obsolescence-proof" components.
Trust me, you haven't, because such things do not exist.

PCI express is in its first instance; next year or two there will be a 2x
speed-bump, another year chipsets will sport more & wider links. Meanwhile
DDR2 increase in transfer speeds through 533mhz then 667mhz then 800mhz - if
it doesn't completely change course and go straight to FB-DIMMs. And that
video card may be laughably obsolete.

Finally, you might get run over by a speeding bus next month.

/daytripper (didn't see *that* coming, did ya? ;-)
 
TheKeith said:
Very informative, thanks very much. Thanks also to everyone else who
replied. It's too bad to hear about Intel's troubles (or is it?), but
I think I'm still going to go with the 915 chipset--it might not have
much of a future ahead of it, but in that case, I'll be able to take
the expensive DDR2 memory and the PCI-express video card with me to a
future system that requires those two things, correct?
Click to expand...

Yes, but it's just as likely that AGP will be supported quite far into the
future, alongside PCIe. Some motherboard manufacturers are even putting an
AGP slot next to PCIe. I'm not sure why Intel decided to remove AGP support
from its motherboards, but it's probably trying to force a switchover to
PCIe much quicker than the market is actually ready for. Any video card you
get today, whether AGP or PCIe, will be well and truly out of date by the
time AGP actually becomes a rarity on motherboards. This is especially true
with video cards, as nowadays the real performance battle in PCs are waged
by the video cards, not the processors as much anymore.

Same thing goes for DDR2 memory. Whatever version of DDR2 you get today,
will be several speed grades out of date when you get your next motherboard.

Yousuf Khan
 
well, I'm finally ready to build a new computer after not having built
one since 2001. I'm a bit behind on all the latest hardware and confused
about what to get. I'm pretty much settled on a p4 3+ GHz, but don't
know whether to go with the new 775 socket with one of the intel 9xx
chipsets or one of the older 875 chipsets with the 478 socket. I've been
reading some about the differences and how the 9xx chipsets don't really
offer any practical performance improvements for the time, but still I
can't see getting an older technology when I don't have to worry at all
about backward-compatibility. All hardware including the HD, will be
purchased new.
Click to expand...

Given that you're buying a whole new system from the ground up, I'd go
with the 9xx chipset. The performance improvements are slim to nil,
but the extra cost is also pretty low. Given that you're probably
looking at spending at least $600-$700, an extra $30 or so to get
PCI-Express slots is probably a decent investment. The integrated
audio on the new chipsets is also better, perhaps enough to justify
using integrated vs. buying an add-in sound card (obviously depending
on how much you care about sound quality and features).

That being said, I would probably stick with DDR memory now rather
than springing for DDR2 memory. The performance difference between
those two is small to none, but the extra cost for DDR2 is fairly
large. For example, 1GB of DDR memory (2 x 512MB) will cost you about
$160, while getting the same memory for DDR2 will cost you ~$260.
Can someone explain what this pci max (I think it's called) is all
about? Is it supposed to compete with AGP or something? Thanks.
Click to expand...

PCI-Express. It's designed to be a single solution for the myriad of
I/O buses we have on boards today. It will eventually replace AGP and
PCI, and has already replaced CSA used for ethernet chips on Intel's
i875 chipset. It may also supplant CNR and ANR, though those pretty
much just used by OEMs anyway.

As with other things mentioned above, performance advantages of
PCI-Express aren't really there. In theory it's a good idea and it
probably will make sense down the road, but the performance isn't
there yet. On the other hand, this is another case where the extra
cost is small (about $10 extra for the video card), so you might as
well go for it.
 
Yousuf Khan said:
Well, the only real advantage of the new 9xx series chipsets is that they do
PCI-Express. Whether to get Socket 775 vs. 478, I'd say that normally it
would matter for upgrade purposes in the future. But frankly, I don't see
much long-term future left for the entire Pentium 4 series anymore. Intel is
in major trouble right now, because it can't dig anymore speed out of its
Pentium 4 anymore. It's been plagued with many fiascos, one after another
for the last several months.
Click to expand...

Of course, none of these alleged "fiascos", nor your concern for the
P4's "long-term future" has anything to do with what to buy today.
While I'd personally go with a socket-939 A64 today, the 3.0 and 3.2
P4's are reasonable choices in a CPU.
 
chrisv said:
Of course, none of these alleged "fiascos", nor your concern for the
P4's "long-term future" has anything to do with what to buy today.
While I'd personally go with a socket-939 A64 today, the 3.0 and 3.2
P4's are reasonable choices in a CPU.
Click to expand...

Normally, I'd just tell someone to buy for today, but the OP's question was
about future upgradeability.

Yousuf Khan
 
"but still I can't see getting an older technology"

Then why do you want a 32 bit processor? Buy an Athlon 64 instead.
 
JK said:
"but still I can't see getting an older technology"

Then why do you want a 32 bit processor? Buy an Athlon 64 instead.
Click to expand...

Because 32 bits OS is guarantied to work.
 
But that wasn't what I said.
Click to expand...

No, it's not, but by saying this, your admit hat you have no excuse for
*not* buying an AMD64 to run your antique 32b OS on it until your hero
in Washington can get with the 21st century! ;-)
 
keith said:
No, it's not, but by saying this, your admit hat you have no excuse for
*not* buying an AMD64 to run your antique 32b OS on it until your hero
in Washington can get with the 21st century! ;-)
Click to expand...

Some people run 64 bit Linux on an Athlon 64 or Opteron. Others are running
the 64 bit Windows beta. While others are running 32 bit Windows XP on
an Athlon 64. The Athlon 64 isn't just for 64 bit computing, but also great
performance running 32 bit software, even with a 32 bit OS. The on chip
memory controller(s) greatly enhance performance.
 
keith said:
No, it's not, but by saying this, your admit hat you have no excuse for
*not* buying an AMD64 to run your antique 32b OS on it until your hero
in Washington can get with the 21st century! ;-)
Click to expand...

Well 20st century if you must. I was working on a 64 bit weather computer
nearly 25 years ago, but I know that news spread slowly in some places...
 
Some people run 64 bit Linux on an Athlon 64 or Opteron.
Click to expand...

Yes they do! ;-)
Others are running the 64 bit Windows beta. While others are running 32 bit Windows XP on
an Athlon 64. The Athlon 64 isn't just for 64 bit computing, but also great
performance running 32 bit software, even with a 32 bit OS. The on chip
memory controller(s) greatly enhance performance.
Click to expand...

You're preaching to the choir (except that Win beta crap - yech!).
 
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