P4 Upgrade from Celeron

[Prydonian]

Good Morning (From the East Coast!)

I want to ask a quick question about a planned upgrade as I really respect everyone's opinion on this board...

I am currently running WXP SP2 on a machine consisting of:

Chaintech MPM800-3 MB
Celeron 2.8 Ghz 256 L2 proc
1.0 GB 400MHZ memory (2x512)
Seagate 40GB HD (System drive)
WD 80GB IDE (Data/Downloads)
WD 200GB SATA (Data/Downloads)
Twin Lite-On DVD burners
Antec 500W PSU
NVidia GeForce FX5200
VIA Chipset

The Issue: When I built this system, I just intended to use it for remote access to work, Office apps and cruising the net. NOW, I gotten bit by the video processing bug. The Celeron appears to be the weak link as it sits at 100% utilization during video post processing. The memory never gets more than 20% utilization and disc space is not an issue. At least not yet!

The Question: I have the opportunity to pick up a used but warranteed P4 3.0 Ghz 478 socket 512L2 proc for about $50.00.

Am I correct in assuming that there will be a noticable increase in performance over the Celeron?

Thanks in advance!!!



Mike, The IT Guy.

 

[micker377]

What's the FSB of the CPU in question? The difference between a 2.8 and 3.0 doesn't seem to be worth the trouble. The only difference is the CPU cache, and I don't think you could tell the difference. You could measure it with a benchmark program, but the "usability" wouldn't be noticed. The bottleneck right now seems to be the system on the PATA hard drive. Can you swap it around to put the system and video edit programs on the faster SATA drives? As for the 100% usage, that would seem to be a balance between the CPU (FSB), memory (FSB). and need for swapping in and out of the swap file. I think you should start looking into a 64 bit system (a whole new can of worms - drivers may not be available for what you need). I'm sure I'll get a lot of responses (pro and con), but that's what this is all about - you are asking for opinions!

 

[paparazi]

Prydonian
Your board does support 800fsb and is "Prescott ready" you have the correct memory type! and
that's a bargain! buy it!

I tend to disagree with micker377 on this one, (as long as this is a 800fsb Northwood or Prescott core) the hyper threading and increased cache levels are exactly what make a full P4 superior to the Celeron, particularly when used for tasks such as "video encoding" etc
OK I admit with general applications you won't notice much of a performance increase but when you consider that you are likely to get at least $40 for your Celeron second hand, this upgrade will be the best $10 you could spend on your system.

Obviously this Via chipset (PM800) Chaintech motherboard isn't exactly the best performing of motherboards but the faster chip will definately help.



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[Prydonian]

Guys;

Thanks for your input! For a net cost of around $10, I'm going to give it a shot. Really got nothing to lose except for a little bit of time on a Saturday afternoon!



Mike, The IT Guy

Life is too short to drink warm beer....

 

[garebo]

You are getting a real bargain when you consider it will only cost you around $10 or so. You really cant do any better in terms of added performance for the $10 mark. In other words, where can you spend $10 and get so much more?
The answer is nowhere. Just the extra cache is worth $10!



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