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Sharky Extreme : Monthly High-end Gaming System Buyer's Guide |
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Monthly High-end Gaming System Buyer's Guide |
February 2004 High-end Gaming PC Buyer's Guide - Page 2By Ryan "Speedy" Wissman February 26, 2004
Current Cost: $420 After some delay, Intel finally released new Pentium 4 processors using the updated Prescott core. These do include an upgraded 16K L1 and 1-MB L2 cache, but to achieve higher clock speeds, Intel widened the pipeline to 31 stages, up from 20 stages on Northwood processors. This gives the Pentium 4 Prescott more headroom for core speed increases, but in terms of performance, it's really a toss-up between it and similarly clocked Northwood models. So until we see higher-than 3.4 GHz clock speeds, or lower retail prices, we likely won't be including a Pentium 4 Prescott in this guide. The Northwood Pentium 4-3.4GHz is currently Intel's best competition for the AMD Athlon 64 3400+. In a head to head battle with the Athlon 64, the Pentium 4 3.4GHz can hold its own, and unlike the jump from an Athlon XP to an Athlon 64, you don't need to upgrade your motherboard. The Pentium 4 Northwood at 3.4GHz still features the same 512K L2 cache, while offering performance gains similar to previous 200 MHz speed jumps on the Pentium 4 highway. The Pentium 4-3.4 GHz is still compatible with most Intel motherboards, but there is a possibility that a BIOS update will be needed to correctly identify the CPU.
Current Cost: $423 AMD is really turning up the heat on Intel with their high-end Athlon 64 3400+. Clocking in at 2.2GHz, AMD is positioning it directly against the Intel Pentium 4 3.4GHz, and has priced it accordingly. The Athlon 64 line has been a worthy adversary to the Pentium 4, and until Intel starts ramping up the clock speed with their Prescott core, it looks as if AMD will remain slightly ahead in this race. The Athlon 64 3400+ has a core clock speed of 2.2GHz and includes 1MB L2 cache, and a single on-die 64-bit memory controller. The Athlon 64 line of processors also features native support for 32-bit and 64-bit software, which can come in very handy when developers decide to start implementing 64-bit instructions into their code, especially now that the Windows XP 64-bit preview edition is available. Even so, the Athlon 64's excellent 32-bit processing architecture translates into top-notch performance using the 32-bit operating system and software you already have.
Current Cost: $0 Intel's retail heatsinks have been excellent as of late, and the high price of their top-end Pentium 4 CPUs has us questioning the validity of purchasing an expensive, 3rd-party model. Intel's bundled heatsink is now copper-core based, and can keep up with many of the third party units, even when overclocking. Therefore, purchasing an expensive third-party unit on top of the pricey Pentium 4-3.4 GHz simply would not be in our best interest when maximizing the price-performance of our Intel system.
Current Cost: $0 Heatsinks from the Athlon XP generation are not compatible with the new Athlon 64 chips, which brings a few challenges to the table. The Athlon 64 features a new pin configuration and heatsink mounting mechanism, and 3rd-party heatsink manufacturers have been a bit slow in catching up, leaving us little choice than to use the retail AMD heatsink. However, this is not really a concession, as the included AMD retail heatsink is more than competent enough for standard operation, and even a little overclocking.
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