changing the CPU on p4b533?

bosone · Post by **bosone** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 8:15 am

hi! i have an asus p4b533-e actually with a 2.4Ghz northwood
since i need some more processing power, but don't want to change all the PC which i bought last christmas (ok ,i should have bought something faster...), i wonder about changing the CPU

if i switch to a 2.8 - 3 GHz how much power will i gain?

another question: my MoBo is FSB533. what happens if i mount a CPU which support FSB at 800Mhz? will it work or not? (i know that i will not use the faster FSB)

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 10:34 am

I wouldn't expect much from that little change.
If you refer to certain native plugins which operate entirely 'inside' the CPU you might experience a little increase in power.
If it's about general processing which also includes memory and disk access you can safely ignore the difference.
I'd rather try to improve processing by choosing a different 'brand' of software which is possibly more optimized. A more difficult task of course

I've been rather shocked about the effective speed of a 2.6 P4 recently, which had to do a mixed job with a lot of disk IO on a database project.
A pentium emulation (!) on a G4 Mac at 350 (!) MHZ was at best 2-4 times slower on the exact same job (including heavy disk IO), and that machine had a 33 MHZ 'FSB'

People tend to 'feel' significant speed improvements due to quicker updates of screen response - if you time an actual processing task the gain is usually much lower.

cheers, Tom

bosone · Post by **bosone** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 10:39 am

my main problem is with DXi like garritan personal orchestra (GPO) and kontakt, which require more power that i thought when i bought this PC.
also DX plugins like reverbs take a lot of my processing power (but this is definitely not a problem since i use most of the time the masterverb).
i'm now looking for some comparative charts with benchmark of different CPU speeds on the same mobo...

the main problem being that, with asio latency of evec 13 msec with pulsar1+luna+pulsar1SRB i get crackles on not-so-heavy (for me)projects, like 12-15 tracks of GPO/kontakt ... and i already did all the possible optimisatios...

valis · Post by **valis** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 10:41 am

133Mhz fsb actually (typo?)

Mounting a cpu with 800Mhz fsb on a 533Mhz fsb motherboard will cause the cpu to run as closely to its rated internal speed as it can but talk to the motherboard at 533Mhz (meaning there are no advantages to using the 800Mhz fsb cpu unless u plan to carry it forward to another motherboard with a future upgrade). Of course you could overclock your motherboard's fsb but you'll need ram the proper speed and I don't generally recommend that anyway.

Personally since you're well over the 2Ghz speed barrier, I would look into what the top speed your motherboard supports and wait until that drops into the price 'sweet spot' for you--then upgrade.

Post by **garyb** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 12:51 pm

i wouldn't expect extreme gains..here's a link to the fastest 533mhz fsb northwood cpu that i know of:
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDe ... Code=80660

ScofieldKid · Post by **ScofieldKid** » Tue Sep 14, 2004 1:30 am

Yeah, what they said.

Being on a 533MHz motherboard kind of locks you in at the moment. i.e. you can't get to something like DDR400 and 800MHz on the FSB.

So... a 3.06 CPU at 533 seems like your best option at the moment. That's a reasonable boost if you ask me, and you have money to spare.

But with all the action going on with the new CPU's at 3.6GHz and beyond, and the switch to DDR2, which will probably go to 667MHz soon, you might just sit back and wait for just a bit longer.

helldriver · Post by **helldriver** » Sun Sep 19, 2004 1:30 pm

i decided to grade up my p4 2,4/533 to a
3.06ghz cpu on my asus p4pe.
the processing power increased more than 30 percent.

liveD

Post by **garyb** » Sun Sep 19, 2004 3:46 pm

i'm with astroman in thinking that instead of improved hardware, that at this point, i'd rather see the software be optimized. with all theis continued flux in spec, the programmers really can't be expected to ever get the code in order. the computers on the mars rovers run complicated instructions and are rock solid reliable on a 20mhz processor. if my studio ran as efficiently as those devices, i would NEVER need more processing than i have now. the only reason i change hardware is to keep up with the software that's keeping up with the hardware. at some point, one must say,"that's good, let's see what we can do with this for a while..."(someone in charge of all this

).

unfortunately, this stupid industry is based solely on economy of scale. millions of computers must be made and sold to keep this thing (indusrty) continuing so that people can afford to by computers(hmmm, the snake eating it's tail). new models must be made. specs change. these things happen at such a rate that code is written for the new spec but is, being new full of unforseen consequences, resource intensive and full of bugs(not optimized) and on the market early. older hardware is phased out before the code that was written for it was ever completed.

consequently, nothing ever works quite right. please stop expecting it to. kudos to the work done to make it work as well as it does.(usefully)

cleanbluesky · Post by **cleanbluesky** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 5:02 pm

The fastest 553mhz you can get is a 3.06ghz but you might want to try overclocking your chip before you try that depending on which generation chip you have (warning: overclocking can fuck your hard-drive and other bits up). If you stick a 800fsb chip into a mobo that has a 533fsb rating the chip will be forced to run at 533, resulting in the clock speed Ghz of the chip being reduced proportionately. You can have 800 in a 533 mobo but the chip will run a lot slower than just getting a 533 chip.