1700+ or 1.8A

[iceblue]

i hope to make this setup ultra-silent, so with that in mind which is the more fitting choice.. the Pentium4 1.8A GHz or Athlon XP 1700+ Thoroughbred? Budget is not a factor at the moment and i wont be getting it watercooled, just a mild OC :t

[Giblet Plus!]

Either has the potential for a good OC and quiet operation. If budget isn't a factor, why the slower chips? That said, they do overclock well if you pick the right ones.

The Zalmann CNPS7000-Cu heatsink is a really great choice for the P4. It's comparable to an Alpha, but extremely quiet.

With the Amd, a Thermalright sk-900 with a quiet 92mm fan would work well too. :)

[Bigjakkstaffa]

1700Tbred B, simply because it overclocks very nicely and im partial to AMD. Giblets cooling suggestions are spot on, as always

--Jakk:t

[iceblue]

Either has the potential for a good OC and quiet operation. If budget isn't a factor, why the slower chips? That said, they do overclock well if you pick the right ones.
the slower chips seemed reasonable.. i didnt want "the latest and the greatest." doesnt it seem like anything above 1.5ghz is all the same except in benchmarks?

if i pick the right ones... u mean stepping?


The Zalmann CNPS7000-Cu heatsink is a really great choice for the P4. It's comparable to an Alpha, but extremely quiet.

With the Amd, a Thermalright sk-900 with a quiet 92mm fan would work well too.
great cooling picks.. nice n big :D

[Bizkitkid2001]

Herd its a pain to get on though:(

[Dracas]

I'm going to recommend the 1.8A Pentium in this case. Its a good idea for Silent systems to have good thermal variance. That thermal processor throttling that so many people are afraid of on the Pentium IV's really is the first way to not burn a chip in a silent system, the idea that you could run the 1.8A without a fan on the heatsink is a neat one, even if the performance is throttled 30~34%

You can't kill them, Tomshardware hade a good article about that, and if you want decent performance without attracting too much dust or condensation, you can always under-watt a peltier element if I remember correctly, so it keeps the processor about room temperature without a fan on it, that way you get all 1.8 ghz decently.

I don't think I can possibly recommend an Athlon/Duron in a silent system unless you have 3~4 good low-noise 80mm~120mm fans just from their lack of thermal protection.

BTW - Thats an opinion folks, feel free to add quotes or comments

[Giblet Plus!]

Pretty much all new amd motherboards have a thermal shutdown feature, and the nforce 2 boards also do processor throttling. Don't let that be an issue. :p

You don't want a peltier in a quiet system because peltiers are ineffient, and add more heat, which has to be dealt with somehow.

A slow (about 30 cfms) 92mm fan on a SLK-900 will both be very quiet and perform a great deal better than the retail heatsink. A couple case fans on 7V will be just fine if they're not in highly restrictive grills. Try to find a case with room for 120mm fans - they have the potential to be quiet and cooler. :)

[Giblet Plus!]

Here's (http://64.95.82.250/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=78&page=1) a good project you could get ideas from. You can probably skip out on the $5000 dollar solid-state hard drive and $50 accoustic matting, but everything else is within your range. :)

[iceblue]

thanks, that pretty much covered most of it, but i dont think i really want the 2.53 they used.. so after comparing prices on newegg.. the finalists are..either 1700+/2100+ B or 2.4B (for only 17 bucks more that has gotta be a deal and considering the fact that so many people got c1 step ;)) =all newegg prices=

[JCB]

All that stuff about pentiums being cooler and quieter these days is ****. They're running in the 50C range too.

[Dracas]

JCB: Believe it or not, Pentiums exude maximum thermal transfer with a heatsink and fan on them, take the fan or the heatsink off and they actually get cooler through the throttling. Its neat stuff and I would still recommend them for a silent/cool system like this, only on the premise that its hard to burn one out.

AMD (regardless of thermal shutdown circuitry) processors still suffer from "Slightly slower then needed" thermal shutdown routines, since the processor itself isn't doing the work. The processor has to wait for (the comparatively slow) mainboard to throttle its processor speed or shut down the power going to the key components, in the world of milliseconds, thats a gigantic amount of time and just as displayed on Toms Hardware when they yanked the HSF off the Palomino, its still a problem today because AMD processors only have an internal probe, they do not implement internal thermal routines. The closest thing that AMD has EVER incorporated into their processors was the cool bit instruction that "Rain" or the windows idle task process uses to cool the processor when its not doing anything.

This has been from my experience of course, as I occasionally get a repair call to replace an amd processor that had overheated. In one case, a HSF fell off after my friend's system got jarred after the goober tripped over it, it was the same Mobo I'm using (Asus A7N8X) and a T-Bred Athlon, the athlon went scorchy scorchy burny burny just like ye old palomino

To sum all of that up, AMDs thermal protection still sucks, but their speed, price, and performance are all well worth it to still be top-dog in a well cooled system, for laptops, silent systems, or any other system that requires extremely good thermal protection, almost to a fault, I would recommend Intel's processors

[causticVapor]

I must agree that both the 1.8A and 1700+ are very good choices, and don't need monster cooling even when overclocked quite substantially. Both are almost guaranteed to reach 2.4 (or 2.4 PR) speed levels without much effort, provided the right stepping is chosen.

Go for a JIUHB DLT3C 1700+ or multi-VID 1.8A. There are rumors that the DLT3C is of the new "Thorton" or T-bred C core revision, which will become AMD's next duron, while hammer becomes a performance part and Barton a mainstream one. Functionally, a thorton is identical to a T-bred but can perform operations with less power consumption.

The multi-VID P4's (which can operate at either 1.5v, 1.525v or 1.55v) are the stepping between the C1 and D1. Most are 2.26, 2.4, 2.53GHz and 3.06GHz. 1.8s may be circulating; I'm not sure. But a C1 1.8 will still be a good choice.

Moving along...

Passively cooling a processor to ambient with a low-wattage TEC is possible; I've seen it done and it adds very little heat to the case. The thing is -- does it justify the extra cost, and can you live with the fact that if the TEC fails you have a cooked processor? All of this must be taken into consideration.

An SLK-900 with a slow-spinning antec smart fan 92mm or Sunon KD series would be an excellent choice for both platforms, with the Zalman CNPS7000Cu eclipsing it on the P4. A vantec aeroflow would not be a bad choice either, and you can always throttle the fan through external means if it is too loud for your tastes. Finally, there is the swiftech MCX462+T, which is a good Heatsink if you want to go the TEC route. Low-wattage operation will still require good cross-ventilation, however.

As for AMD's thermal protection circuitry, I have learned to never trust it as it has always failed on me. Must agree with dracas here, if your HS falls off or doesn't come in full contact with the core, the remainder of your Athlon die will be an oxidized coating within seconds. Motherboard latencies are too long for the milliseconds required to throttle or halt an uncooled processor. Indeed, they only work if the cooling system has failed and is still buffered.

And I don't like the mechanical fragility of the Athlon core; every single AMD chip I have lacks at least one corner. Only one was lost, however, and this was not due to the chipped corner.

On the other hand the P4 is equally fragile with its voltage transients and stark unevenness in thermal loading across the die. This makes it very sensitive to voltage increase and can cause the processor to behave erroneously in a completely sporadic fashion. It tends to burn in at a certain speed, and pushing clock speeds further after a long time of running at one speed can jeapordize the processor, even without voltage increase.

Basically, if you have a P4 and it won't go very far with 1.6v, consider it a bad clocker and don't push further. Be careful with mounting on the athlons - the more you mount, the more cracking you will get -- it is inevitable. At least the XPs are made on an OPGA backing which can bend more than ceramic, and so cracking those chips is more difficult. Still, exercise caution.

Be careful... and you will enjoy.. Good clocking! :cool:

[JCB]

Thermal throttle is like putting a governor on it. Why bother w/ a 3G chip if you're going to run it at 1G ??? Get a duron.

[iceblue]

i guess i'll go for the p4 2.4B... i see no reason to get the 1700+ except that it's cheaper, but it just doesnt look that attractive. :t

[causticVapor]

Thermal throttling only happens when the chip reaches dangerously high temperatures.

The 1700+ can reach 2.4PR (2GHz) and beyond. However,

get the right multi-vid 2.4GHz Northwood and you'll be in the 3.5GHz range.

Look in crazypc.com and xcaliberpc.com. They sell CPUs and tell you the stepping too. Newegg is less reliable in that arena.

[iceblue]

Originally posted by causticVapor
Look in crazypc.com and xcaliberpc.com. They sell CPUs and tell you the stepping too. Newegg is less reliable in that arena.
crazypc prices are a bit higher than newegg ive noticed.. dont think they sell CPUs though.

xcaliberpc.com doesnt work :confused:

i usually look at the reviews nearly 90% got c-1 step.. so im pretty confident i'll get it :)

[Dracas]

Newegg.com will actually post when they've gotten a good overclocking processor by posting the Stepping in the item descriptions, the only ones you gamble on are the ones that don't have the stepping listed.

Reason for that, as far as I can guess, is that folks over at Newegg frequent here at Sysopt and Tomshardware, as well as other places and are apt to mention (however subtly) that the processor can be clocked (eg - showing the stepping, so end-users can do research)

Thats not really useful to you ice, but its just something to keep in mind when shopping newegg. Don't be afraid to write tech support and have them check steppings for you, I'm sure they'd do it.

[causticVapor]

Originally posted by iceblue

crazypc prices are a bit higher than newegg ive noticed.. dont think they sell CPUs though.

xcaliberpc.com doesnt work :confused:

i usually look at the reviews nearly 90% got c-1 step.. so im pretty confident i'll get it :)

http://www.pcnut.com/welcome.html

Don't know what happened to the other one :p

[iceblue]

i might pass on the pentium4 2.4B.. could be a XP 2400+ for $110 @ newegg :eek:

my goal is to try to nab all the essential parts (cpu/mobo/ram) for under $350 :cool:

wadaya guys think?

[paul0660]

the slower chips seemed reasonable.. i didnt want "the latest and the greatest." doesnt it seem like anything above 1.5ghz is all the same except in benchmarks?

Not true. You will find that multitasking works better with more horsepower (running media player or burning cd's or any intensive number crunching) while trying to do other stuff.

The 2400+ can probably be overclocked quite easily to a benchmark that will surpass a P4 3.06 without hyperthreading.

Get an nforce chip mobo for easy overclocking, and some good ram, and you can do it all for $350 easy. Add a good hs and you will be right there.

[Bigjakkstaffa]

Yup, as paul said an XP2400+ coupled with an Epox 8rda+ or Abit NF7-S and soem decent ram, maybe PC3200 will do around 2.4-2.5ghz overclock... which is nice

--Jakk:t

[iceblue]

i suppose these boards won't be able to support the geforceFX ultras that take up an additional pci slot?

[Bigjakkstaffa]

With the performance of the current crop of Ati cards, as much as i've hated em in the past, i cant really see why anyone would be considering the gffx cards

--Jakk:t

[iceblue]

With the performance of the current crop of Ati cards, as much as i've hated em in the past, i cant really see why anyone would be considering the gffx cards

--Jakk
just tryin to keep my options open :)

[Dracas]

As far as GeFX are concerned, I keep wondering why some company doesn't "Mirror" the Surface mount components to the back side of the Board, but keep the layout and port configurations the same, that way you can mount whatever the heck you want to cool the videocard without taking up extra PCI slots because the nV core would be on the backside, in most of the mainboard/cases I've seen, theres about four inches of deadspace between the AGP slot and the Socket for the processor. That gobbledegook probably didn't make any sense hehe

[x51out]

No, made perfect sense. I've thought the same and have wondered why it hasn't been at least offered. Could be any reason and I'm sure somebody at ATI and Nvidia has thought about it...

[Giblet Plus!]

Originally posted by Dracas
As far as GeFX are concerned, I keep wondering why some company doesn't "Mirror" the Surface mount components to the back side of the Board, but keep the layout and port configurations the same, that way you can mount whatever the heck you want to cool the videocard without taking up extra PCI slots because the nV core would be on the backside, in most of the mainboard/cases I've seen, theres about four inches of deadspace between the AGP slot and the Socket for the processor. That gobbledegook probably didn't make any sense hehe

It makes a whole lot of sense, but that doesn't conform to the AGP specs. This lack of the agp name would make it very difficult to sell cards to anyone except tweaking-oriented folks. :p

[causticVapor]

Yep. max component height on top is about half a centimeter I believe.

In the days of slot one, the AGP card did get very close to the URM, so it was understandable. Looks like we need an "AGP 4.0" spec, eh? Or... perhaps the new form factor for PCI-X graphics cards will address this...

[Dracas]

hehe, what do you mean "Except" tweaking oriented folks?

Who else goes out and spends $500 on a video card that takes up two component slots and a power cable?

I can't see my mom going"Look honie, a GeForce FX 5800 Ultra with a 350 Horsepower Small Block Chevy V-8 strapped to it to provide the extra 8000 kilajoules needed to power it so it can render the whole Final Fantasy movie in 8x fast forwards in real time and still have power left over to play 'gone with the wind' in reverse and japanese!"

Face it, the GeFX was designed to be a tweaker card, with its smaller form fact, the Radeon was closer to a market worthy card. I'm not sure what nVidia was thinking, but at this point, AGP is just a selling point, but 'nVidia' is a bigger selling point, and you can still say its AGP-8X Compatible, rather then AGP-8x Compliant (which is what people should be saying in reference to nomenclature)

[x51out]

Besides all that, case modders with plexiglass windows would LOVE to be able to actually see the face of the card. I know I would;)