New to Intel Systems, need some "guides"!

[SoniCruiser]

Hi all,

I am planning on building a new pc for a friend who prefers Intel CPUs. I haven't been following the P4 market, so can someone tell me something about the current"situation", please?

Chipsets, motherboards, what's to come in the future...etc,

Thanks a lot!

[Morgan_Lander]

I can't tell ya much, but even if your buddy overclocks, the stock heatsink is plenty in most cases.

Socket 423: old, limited P4 socket. Fastest you can drop in w/o overclocking is 2GHz on the Willamette core. Socket 478: new, long lasting P4 socket.

On the CPU's: Any CPU 1.6A and up to 2.0A GHz CPU that has an "A" after the CPU speed is based on the Northwood core--which is the newer one. They also have 512kB of L2 cache and overclock like nuts:D (this may not be relavent to your buddy). Any CPU above 2.0GHz is a Northwood core, but the ones denoted with a "B" run a 533MHz FSB as opposed to a 400MHz FSB.

i845: you have the plain jane i845--this supports SDR SDRAM and basically strangles the memory bandwith to the P4, and is best to avoid. i845D--same thing, but Intel just "officially" supported DDR. i845G/GL. Same thing as the i845D, but with "Intel extreme graphics" and the GL is made specifically for the Socket 478 Celerons. The i845G/GL unoffically support DDR 333 and support the 533MHz FSB P4's.

i850: This uses RDRAM, which must be installed in pairs. Any 400MHz FSB P4 will be supported. Boards come in Socket 423 and Socket 478 flavors. The i850E supports PC1066 RDRAM and 32-bit modules (mobo company must chose to implement the 32-bit RIMM slots---only Asus P4T533 does this so far). Gives support for the 533MHz FSB P4's. The i850/E are the fastest Pentium 4 solutions bar none at stock speeds.