Upgrading to Pentium 4 System (1 Viewer)

[Glenn Overholt]

I'm planning on dumping my PIII/733mhz board and getting a PIV/2G CPU, but after a little reading, it isn't so easy.
I read that there are P4 specific power supplies out. Outside of the ATX power plug and the regular drive plugs, they have added an extra 12v cord and a 3.3v cord that plug into the motherboard, so if I did upgrade I'd have to get a new power supply too.
The 'new' power supplies are called 'ATX12V'. Has anybody done this and what do the 'new' plugs look like?
Glenn

 

[Rob Gillespie]

You basically have two extra leads coming out of the PSU. The Chieftec PSU in my new case had one, but I've replaced that with a QuietPC 300w model due to the lower noise floor. That PSU also has P4 connectors on it. Can't remember exactly what they look like but they're smaller than the regular ATX block connector.
Now, don't take this as gospel, but I *think* I read somewhere that the extra connectors are for the Socket-423 version of the P4 and that the newer Socket-478 version doesn't need them. I could very well be wrong on that so do check.
Now that the prices are coming down, I'm tempted to start putting a strong P4 system together myself. The 2Ghz chip is still way too expensive compared to the 1.9 though. I imagine when the 2.4 comes out next year all the prices will shift down again.
Have you thought about an Athlon system? Much cheaper in terms of processor prices.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

I was looking at an Intel 478 board, but the few people that I've talked to about it don't know much.
I did try an Ath once, but it didn't like some of the programs that I had loaded into it, so I sent it back to the dealer and the Intel worked flawlessly after that. May be just me.
Glenn

 

[Eric Goldstein]

unless you've got money coming out of your butt and want something SLOWER, then you should get an athlonXP system instead. the 1900+ will be WAY faster than teh p4 2 ghz in some apps and equivalent in speed in others. basically, its ALOT cheaper and overall faster. a wonderful motherboard to accompany it is the Epox EP-8KHA+ (MAKE SURE THERE IS A PLUS AT THE END OF THE MODEL NUMBER!!!!!!!! OTHERWISE YOURE GETTING A DIFFERENT BOARD!). 768 meg of RAM would cost you $100
do all that, get windows XP, and turn off the swap file, and you'll have HANDS DOWN the fastest system you've ever set eyes on.
oh, and if you think i dont know what im talking about, check out my (under construction) company's page at Link Removed
have a great day!
------------------
eRiC

 

[Eric Goldstein]

if my telling you so isnt enough, then read this article:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1554

 

[Glenn Overholt]

Do Athlon boards require the 'extra' cables?
Glenn

 

[Rob Gillespie]

No, but you should use an AMD approved unit to avoid unnecessary problems.

 

[Greg_R]

Yes, the P4 boards require the 3 different power supply connectors. I know for a fact that the i850 chipset based 478 Socket boards require this power supply (not sure about i815). I believe the new connectors contain 2x2 and 1x8 pins. If this is for HTPC use, I'd suggest searching the backposts in this and AVS forum about chipset stability w. various add-on cards. You may also want to check out this article.
Greg

 

[Glenn Overholt]

Greg, that was a riot! Those pictures of the fried CPU's just cracked me up.
I found out about the 2x2 connector. I think the 3rd is a 1x6, so I'd have to look for a new power supply.
As for the heat, I have a thermometer that fits into the heat sink fans, and the lower half of my PC has 8 fans. 4 in front and 4 in the back. On my last machine, I got some 'L' shaped brackets from a hardware store and put a fan on the bottom of the inside of the case.
Seeing as how I'm going to do this on my own, I will make sure that ventilation is adequately supplied. I had a 486 years ago that got too hot once in the middle of a heat wave with no A/C in the house. The game I was playing did some really strange things before I turned it off.
Glenn

 

[Rob Gillespie]

I know for a fact that the i850 chipset based 478 Socket boards require this power supply

Thanks Gregg, I wasn't sure.

 

[Michael Silla]

Eric I just purchased the EPoX 8KHA+ last week. Great board and super stable to boot. I never thought of loading it with 768 MB of RAM though. Does Windows XP have better memory management so as to take better advantage of such a huge "gob"?. If so, I'd buy it for that reason alone. No swap file?....cool!.
Michael.

 

[Rob Gillespie]

XP, like 2000 is based on the NT kernel, so memory management is hugely better than in 95/98/Me. Give it as much RAM as you can, it'll work great.

 

[Kevin T]

maybe someone can help me with this while we're all talking about upgrades. i have an old hp pavilion 4535 with an asus mew-vm motherboard. right now it's running a celeron 400 mhz processor (socket 370). i'm pretty sure it's the 810 chipset but i don't know for sure. anyways, i wanna upgrade to a 1 ghz or faster processor (probably celeron as well) but i'm worried about the front side bus (fsb) speed. i know the motherboard can handle 66 mhz fsb but most processors over 766 mhz have 100+ mhz fsb. there is a jumper on the board for changing between 66 and 100 mhz fsb. could i just switch the jumper and pop in a 1 ghz chip or am i just dreaming? i tried switching the jumper with the 400 mhz and nothing happened...system wouldn't even boot. i'm actually quite computer savvy but i'm sort of a novice at the processor upgrading game. also, for some ungodly reason, i cannot figure out how to access the bios because on start up all i get a is the blue hp screen and then windows 98 boots (gotta upgrade that too!). i've tried hitting f2 and del but those don't do anything. so am i stuck at 766 mhz or can i go faster? any help would be so very very very greatly appreciated. thanks.
kevin t

 

[Carlo_M]

I just built a 478 pin system and it does require the new power supply.
If you have a choice go with the 478 pins because I believe their new Northwood core (with more on-die cache mem) will be only in the 478 pin configuration and will ramp up higher than the old 423 pin processors. I think the theoretical limit to the new 478 pin procs (with the Northwood core) approaches 3GHz, while the old 423 pins top out around 2GHz (I'm working on memory here and I could be off, feel free to do your own research).

 

[Glenn Overholt]

That's good news. My current board origianlly went to 733, but now it's up to 1 gig. If I get a board that goes up to 2 gig now, (with a 478 chip) maybe I can run it up to 3 gigs later!
I'm watching the 2 gig prices now and I'm expecting them to drop before the end of the year, so it won't be that bad of a deal then, but we all know that as soon as you buy something, it's wasted money in just a few weeks.
Fun though. I'm glad too that my case manufacturer has upgradeable power supplies and motherboard trays so I won't have to get a new case and move everything over. I do wonder if they will ever stop making faster chips because they've reached their limit.
Glenn