[CS-FSLUG] Upgrading a Northwood CPU...

[Peter J. Vasquez Sr.]

Tim,
  While the Prescott is 'faster', it runs hotter, consumes more power,
and has more stages in the pipeline (31 vs. 20 in the Northwood
processor).  The biggest benefit I see is the larger L2 cache of the
Prescott series, which can be an advantage in some applications.  L2
cache could be a very good reason to upgrade, but that benefit may
decrease depending on the application (as the more stages in the
pipeline will affect performance), and you also need to take into
account the larger heat dissipation and power requirements.  Let me
know if this helps.  It's about all I can offer for an older CPU that
I haven't touched in a very long time.  Plus, I'm a software person,
and usually don't pay much attention to the hardware unless it affects
something I'm using or working on.

On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 1:00 AM, Timothy Butler <tbutler at ofb.biz> wrote:
> I'm surprised no one has an opinion on this. Too old to hold any opinion any
> longer?
>
> Blessings,
> Tim
>
> On Sep 9, 2012, at 6:17 PM, Timothy Butler <tbutler at ofb.biz> wrote:
>
> OK, here's a weird question for you. Almost nine years ago, I built a
> Shuttle SB62G2 computer for an Open for Business review. While these days it
> is quite old, it was a very nice system for the time -- SATA, AGP 8x, RAID
> support, a fast processor, etc. Well, the computer I have in my church
> office is an AMD Sempron 3000+ system that, I believe is actually slower
> than my little old Shuttle. The Sempron also doesn't support the resolution
> of the nice 19" LCD I salvaged from another staff member who left.
>
> So, I thought I would upgrade my little Northwood-based Shuttle a bit and
> see if I couldn't make it into a decent system that I could live with for
> awhile. (Ideally, until the church is in the black again and could justify
> replacing my system with a nice little Mac mini :-)).
>
> Long prologue finished: Here's what I've ordered in upgrades...
>
> - 2 GB of ram for $31, moving up from 512 MB.
> - A 120 GB SSD for $34 (Amazon special)
> - A GeForce FX 5200 with 256 MB of RAM for $21 (new on eBay)
>
> Maybe this isn't the best way to go about getting a workable system, but
> it's kind of fun and I think it might actually be a decent little system.
>
> The big question: I have a Northwood (HyperThreaded) 2.6 GHz CPU in it. On
> eBay I see used Northwood and Prescott Pentium 4 3.2 GHz's and Pentium 4
> Extreme Editions that in theory should be compatible with my system and cost
> $7-$15. Do you think the performance gains are enough to make an attempted
> upgrade worthwhile?
>
> Blessings,
> Tim
>
> ________________________
> Timothy R. Butler
> Discipleship Pastor
> Grace Presbyterian Church
> timothy.butler at gracepca.net
>
> "The true treasure of the Church is the Most Holy Gospel of the glory and
> the grace of God." -- Martin Luther
>
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