Overclocking Buyer's Guide - August 2004

CPU and Motherboard: VALUE OC Recommendations

CPU: Intel Pentium 4 2.8C 800MHz FSB Northwood (512K L2 cache)
Motherboard: ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe (875P chipset)
Price: CPU - $175 shipped (Retail). Motherboard - $172 shipped

Choosing an Intel processor these days can be very confusing, as there are so many flavors available. Because the Intel processors are multiplier locked, we like the 2.8 speed for overclocking. The 14 multiplier is realistic for reaching the best overclocks that you will likely achieve with a Pentium 4. The question becomes, "which 2.8?" The 2.8A is based on the Prescott core, but is without Hyperthreading and runs with a 21 multiplier at a 533 FSB. While we have seen reports of these CPUs reaching 180 to 190 overclocks (3.78GHz to 4.0GHz), we are still left with the diminishing returns of a high multiplier, a FSB below 800, and no Hyperthreading. If the 2.8A were cheaper than the 2.8E or C, we could easily recommend it, but at about the same price, we would choose an 800FSB 2.8.

With the Prescott 2.8E at the same price as the Northwood 2.8C, the 2.8C is an easy choice unless you have to have the highest FSB for bragging rights. On Socket 478, Northwood performs better than Prescott, and you will also likely find that the overclocked Northwood, which will top out about 3.4 to 3.7GHz, is still a better performer than the overclocked Prescott on the 875 chipset and Socket 478. The 2.8C runs at 800MHz FSB with a 14X multiplier. This multiplier should allow you to squeeze everything from the Northwood Pentium 4 that you can get. 3.7GHz would require a doable 265 Clock frequency, and the more likely 3.5GHz can be achieved at 250FSB, which is DDR500 at 1:1 memory.

It's been several months since we did some serious overclocking with a Northwood chip, but reports are that recent Northwoods are overclocking very well. Our Evan Lieb reached 3.4GHz with default 1.525 voltage, with a 2.8C on a P4C800-E motherboard. With voltage cranked to 1.65V, he reached a very stable 3.59GHz, which proved its stability by running 8 hours+ looping Prime95 and SPECviewperf 7.1.1 programs. Chips and performance do vary and overclocking is never guaranteed, but the performance that we have seen with off-the-shelf 2.8C processors suggest that you can and should be able to reach the highest levels of Northwood performance with a 2.8C and a motherboard that overclocks very well.

When all is said and done, the P4C800-E Deluxe has proven itself to be the premier Pentium 4 motherboard for overclockers. This motherboard has reached 290+ in our DDR memory test bed, and we have seen 270MHz-280MHz FSB using just basic retail Intel cooling with a good 2.4C processor. With a 2.8C processor, you should be able to run fast memory at 1:1 to the fastest processor speed that you can reach. You also have the option of running fast DDR400 memory at 2-2-2 timings, at a lower ratio, which is often just as fast as higher memory speeds at higher latencies. With all things being equal, higher memory speed is faster, but higher memory speed often requires higher latencies. Which is better depends on how aggressive your timings can be at the highest memory speed.

However you cut it, though, the ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe offers everything an overclocker could want: plenty of room for FSB overclocking, 2.85V max VDIMM, 1.95V max Vcore, and features like CSA Gigabit LAN, SATA and IDE RAID, IEEE 1394 FireWire, etc. This motherboard is absolutely packed with just about every feature that a high end user and overclocker could need.

Listed below is part of our RealTime pricing engine, which lists the lowest prices available on Intel motherboards from many different reputable vendors:



If you cannot find the lowest prices on the products that we've recommended on this page, it's because we don't list some of them in our RealTime pricing engine. Until we do, we suggest that you do an independent search online at the various vendors' web sites. Just pick and choose where you want to buy your products by looking for a vendor located under the "Vendor" heading.