CPU upgrade

[elbowloh]

Hi,

I have a Dell Dimension 4400 1.7ghz P4 400mhz FSB and would like to upgrade the processor.

What CPU do you recommend I upgrade to (without changing the motherboard)?

Can i get a 3ghz P4 processor that will fit my board or am i limited to a 2.8ghz chip?

To be honest I am a bit confused about the different types of chips (northwood, williamette etc)

[hockey man]

first of all welcome to the pcguide!

Now on to the cpu. . .

A 1.7gig should be able to run anything you can throw at it. At dell.com it says you have a socket 478.

Now, your fsb on your mobo is 400mhz. I'm not sure if you can put a cpu with a larger on in. If so your only upgrade options would be intel Celerons. I'm not sure how they compare to older p4. Others here can help you with that and with the different cores and how they compare.

Now, what are the rest of your system specs? One thing to consider is that you want a balanced system. There's no point in putting a 3.0 cpu in a system with 128mb of ram. If you have 256megs of ram or less I would only upgrade the ram. More ram speeds up a system.

Other issues to think about. . .
1- a socket 478 3gig cpu will not be as good as a socket 775 3gig cpu. Your older socket will limit your cpu.
2-any cpu above 1.5 gigs should be fine for a system. I have HALO in front of me and the cpu requirements are a 733mhz cpu. Infact I can't think of any program that ask for a 1.5+cpu.
3-Ram, ram, ram. . .the more merrier . More ram will vastly improve your system. Dell says you have 2 DDR SDRAM slot wich can hold a max of 1 gig. Here is a link to some:
http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16820141424

So what would I do? Keep the cpu, upgrade the ram.

[elbowloh]

Hi Hockey man,

thanks for the reply.

I already have upgraded the RAM to 512MB (soon to be 1gb, this weekend)
and graphics to Gainward FX5700 ultra "goldensample" video card
I have a soundblaster audigy 2 zs soundcard.

I was under the impression that i could get at least a 2.8ghz P4 processor, but I didn't know what the difference was between the different types were e.g. Northwood, Williamette etc.

I do a bit of gaiming (but not heavy) e.g Matrix online, Far Cry (at faily low detail), Football Manager 2005, Knights of the Old Republic. No doom3 or Halo.

[saphalline]

Download and run Everest Home Edition and tell us what it says under both the CPU info and the chipset/mobo info. After that, we can tell you the max P4 you can upgrade to and its core revision.

[elbowloh]

OK thanks. Here we go:

CPU Properties:

CPU Type Intel Pentium 4, 1700 MHz (17 x 100)
CPU Alias P68, Willamette, A80528
CPU Stepping D0
Instruction Set x86, MMX, SSE, SSE2
Original Clock 1700 MHz
Engineering Sample No
L1 Trace Cache 12K Instructions
L1 Data Cache 8 KB
L2 Cache 256 KB (On-Die, ECC, ATC, Full-Speed)

CPU Physical Info:

Package Type 478 Pin uPGA
Package Size 3.50 cm x 3.50 cm
Transistors 42 million
Process Technology 6M, 0.18 um, CMOS
Die Size 217 mm2
Core Voltage 1.75 V
I/O Voltage 1.75 V
Typical Power 55.3 - 75.3 W (depending on clock speed)
Maximum Power 72 - 100 W (depending on clock speed)


Motherboard Properties:

Motherboard ID 51-2300-000000-00101111-030199-$D845PT_
Motherboard Name Intel Pendleton D845PT

Front Side Bus Properties:
Bus Type Intel NetBurst
Bus Width 64-bit
Real Clock 100 MHz (QDR)
Effective Clock 400 MHz
Bandwidth 3200 MB/s

Memory Bus Properties:
Bus Type DDR SDRAM
Bus Width 64-bit
Real Clock 133 MHz (DDR)
Effective Clock 267 MHz
Bandwidth 2133 MB/s

Chipset Bus Properties:
Bus Type Intel Hub Interface
Bus Width 8-bit
Real Clock 67 MHz (QDR)
Effective Clock 267 MHz
Bandwidth 267 MB/s

Motherboard Physical Info:
CPU Sockets/Slots 1
Expansion Slots 3 PCI, 1 AGP
RAM Slots 2 DIMM
Integrated Devices Audio
Form Factor Micro ATX
Motherboard Size 210 mm x 240 mm
Motherboard Chipset i845D

Hopefully that's everything.

Thanks again.

[saphalline]

Ok, good news. According to Dell's forums, your system should be able to handle all the way up to a 2.8 Northwood A, if you have a BIOS version of A05 or A06 (most likely you have one of these). The Northwood A versions have the same 400 FSB that your current Willamette has, and there isn't support for the faster 533 FSB. That's a bummer, but on the plus side you do have an upgrade path so rejoice! If that had been a Socket 423 P4, your max upgrade would have been a Willamette 2.0 so yeah, it could have been a lot worse!

Using Newegg's listing of Socket 478 Northwood A's, here's what they have:

$119 - P4A 2.0 OEM

$169 - P4A 2.8 OEM

These are OEM versions, so they don't come with an HSF (heatsink & fan unit) but you can use your current one as long as you replace the thermal material. Alternatively, you should be able to use a Celeron based on the Northwood A core revision. This is by no means guaranteed (contact Dell to be sure) but here are the Celeron candidates:

$80 - Celeron 2.4 retail

$89 - Celeron 2.6 retail

These are retail versions, so they're ready to go right out of the box. That's always nice, especially if this will be your first CPU upgrade. My best guess is that these Celerons will work fine, but again that's no guarantee on an OEM machine. The Dell forums didn't seem to cover Celeron upgrades, either, I'm afraid.

In terms of overall performance increases, the P4A 2.8 would be the best choice. That would give you roughly 70-80% more CPU power, so that's very nice! The Celeron upgrades would be less glamorous, but even so the Celeron 2.6 would give roughly a 50% boost.

[elbowloh]

Thanks Saphalline. You guys really are helpfull.

Thanks again from the UK.