Q: What might be better a P4 2.8C or 3.0E? Looking at buying one of these . what one might be better / faster?
thanks
Best Answer: Have you installed ALL drivers after reformatting and installing OS? It is normally done after a fresh OS installation.
Ctrl – Alt – Del to open task manager. Select Processes tab. Look at CPU column. Find the process that is using up the highest % of CPU resource. That's your problem. It could be your anti-virus that is set to scan every time you boot and it is also set to use maximum cpu resource. Try ending that process and see if performance improves. Then try reconfiguring that process so that it does not grab cpu resource all the time.
You can also disable unnecessary startups in msconfig (Run msconfig).
There's nothing wrong with your motherboard.
Re:I had the 2.8c (it had an accidental death) and now have the 3.0e. In terms of speed, I don't notice any real difference. The 3.0e does run hotter and the fan is a little louder than the 2.8c, but nothing earth shattering. I don't OC, but just playing around, the 3.0e is the better OC'r.
Re:Having both northwoods and prescotts at the moment I would definatly take the 2.8c over the 3.0E. The northwood runs much cooler, and is faster clock for clock in a lot of things.
EDIT: Also, while the prescott does have more cache, the cache on the prescott has a much higher latency, which hinders it's performance as well..
Re:3.0E myself ..
Yes, Prescott is hot, but it is fast.
I have owned both but i still prefer Prescott.
I can get my 3.0E at 260fsb which is. … around 3.9Ghz
But i leave it at 245fsb because theseday is hot enough. i don't want to warm up my room while i am playing.
Re:Originally posted by: guy
Originally posted by: guy
3.0Ghz E for me. Price difference is minimum and you get an added 512kb of caché; Better deal.
Even with the added cache the Prescott is slower than Northwood at equal clock speeds, plus runs hotter, and uses more power.
Agreed on that. If you are an overclocker though you should be able to hit or get close to 4Ghz on air with ease, where as a 2.8C if you are lucky will hit 3.6.
Re:Originally posted by: guy
3.0Ghz E for me. Price difference is minimum and you get an added 512kb of caché; Better deal.
Even with the added cache the Prescott is slower than Northwood at equal clock speeds, plus runs hotter, and uses more power.
Re:Originally posted by: guy
3.0Ghz E for me. Price difference is minimum and you get an added 512kb of caché; Better deal.
Better deal ????, thats hilarious
2.8c all the way, though I am biased as my 2.8c M0 runs @ 3.8 24/7
Re:2.8C easy
prescot runs hot
has longer pipelines
they had to create two intruction to double the cache
so pretty much its slower.
Re:Originally posted by: guy
4.0ghz, no need to overclock. no overclocker and reach this speed let alone a child with a pentium 100
wtf
Re:If you plan to overclock go with the 3.0E. If not at stock speeds the 2.8C is the better performer.
Re:2.8 C
end of
Re:4.0ghz, no need to overclock. no overclocker and reach this speed let alone a child with a pentium 100
Re:3.0Ghz E for me. Price difference is minimum and you get an added 512kb of caché; Better deal.
Re:Why don't you just get a mobile XP for $70 and slap it in your existing setup? (nice case BTW) It will hit 2500ish and be about like a 3.2C there.
Re:2.8C all day. Prescott sux hard even if you get it running at advertised speed.
Re:I'd take the 2.8C.
Re:Anand himself came to the conclusion that the Prescotts really don't pay off until you hit clock speeds of 3.6GHz and beyond. This is primarily due to the much longer instruction pipeline in the Prescotts as compared to the Northwoods. They need that much sheer clock speed to overcome the inherent probs of the longer pipelines.
These kinds of questions are hard to answer definitively though, as it kind of depends on what software you're running. Apps that respond better to shorter pipelines would run faster on a 2.8C than a 3.0E, I believe. IIRC, the branch prediction error rates are lower on some (or all?) of the Prescotts than the Northwoods, however, so there is some gain there on Prescotts' behalf.
Prescotts also run hotter than Northwoods, so keep that in mind as well. I don't overclock myself, so I can't speak to that and will defer to the other guys for their thoughts on that.
Here (http://www.{$MySite}/printarticle.html?i=1956) is Anand's article on this subject for anyone who'd like a more in-depth explanation of what I stated above. It's long, but a very good read.
Re:They cost roughly the same too, so I'd say they are of equal value.
Re:well it depends on heat and o/cing
i've owned both, and i could only o/c the 3.0e to 3.2ghz
the 2.8c i was able to do 3.3ghz
but in the end, they're just about the same performance anyway (2.8c vs 3.0e) 
Re:Hmmm wondering this myself….
Northwoods typically are good oc'ers
Prescotts are known to run at higher temps.
Bump for resoloution.
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