Which Processor?

[rbautch]

I ordered the following motherboard earlier this week after learning mine had died. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131484 Turns out my processor also fried. I want to make sure I get a compatible processor, so is there anything I need to look for besides a 478 socket? Can anyone recommend a particular processor or deal?

[budz]

I ordered the following motherboard earlier this week after learning mine had died. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131484 Turns out my processor also fried. I want to make sure I get a compatible processor, so is there anything I need to look for besides a 478 socket? Can anyone recommend a particular processor or deal?

How fast of a processor do you want? I have that same motherboard, one has a P4 3.0C Northwood processor and the other one has a P4 2.4 Northwood. Northwood core processor's are hard to find now. If you want the fastest get this on: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819116164

Any Northwood core processor will do fine with that motherboard.
Make sure you have the right type of memory for the motherboard.

[rallynavvie]

Northwoods perform better in most aspects. The newer Prescotts run really hot and only make up for this by being faster in a very few things. If you can still find a Northwood I'd get that first. Maybe get a used one off eBay?

[rbautch]

Thanks for the replies. I'm looking for 3.0 or 3.2. I'm still a little confused about the Northwood versus Prescott. Why would Intel come out with a new processor that runs hotter than the last version, which minimal speed increase? By the way, thanks much to budz and erdons for recommending that motherboard to me in the first place.

[budz]

Thanks for the replies. I'm looking for 3.0 or 3.2. I'm still a little confused about the Northwood versus Prescott. Why would Intel come out with a new processor that runs hotter than the last version, which minimal speed increase? By the way, thanks much to budz and erdons for recommending that motherboard to me in the first place.

As rallynavie mentioned the Northwood performs better than the Prescott. The big difference is the Prescott has high heat temperature where you would probably have to use another heatsink fan other than the intel stock one to get a cooler CPU temp. Get your Northwood processor quick before they become extinct. Newegg.com has the 3.2 instock: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819116164

[rallynavvie]

Because the Prescott is a 90nm process chip so the technology is better on paper. However the thermal issues inherent to the chip make it perform worse out of the box. If you go through the trouble of getting better cooling on the chip then you can get far better performance out of it, but then you can do the same with a Northwood and even overclock it a little to make up the difference. The pipes are shorter on the Prescotts so technically it should be faster, it just isn't in most cases though.

However Intel did fix this with the latest 90nm process cores, but you'd have to upgrade to an LGA motherboard for these, and then I'd be pushing the Pentium Ds like mad if you did.

[rbautch]

Thanks. I just bought the Northwood in the link above.

[rallynavvie]

I think that 3.2 Northwood will treat you well, and that price isn't bad at all.