The new "Northwood" Pentium 4's are making quite a stir in the market right now for their incredible value and overclockability. Seeing that it was time for me to upgrade anyway from my Pentuim III 1000mhz, I went out and started researching for the best value out there, for me, on the market today. I've read thru tons of review from just about every site a search engine could find, as well as just about every decent public computer forum out there!

   Surprisingly though, my biggest dilemma was not the CPU, but rather the motherboard itself. I was coming from an ASUS MB and never had a problem with it so that was my first target.

   Choosing the right cpu was a little compelling, but not too bad. I was looking at the 1.6A and the 1.8A P4 chips. After my hefty research, I've found that both chips have a very high percentage of getting a great overclock. So it really came down to me deciding if I wanted to spend the extra cash on the 1.8A and go with the odds of getting it alittle higher than the average 1.6A overclock.

   Since I was only coming from a 1ghz cpu, I was realistically only looking to get a solid 2ghz cpu thru overclocking. Little did I know what I would actually get ;p

Deciding On The New.....

   So, after my countless hours spent reading reviews, it all came down to the numerous "user experiences" in the forums that helped me make my decisions. The first thing to note about the difference between the 1.6A and the 1.8A is to realize that, as with ALL Intel cpus, you can NOT adjust the clock multiplier.

   To overclock, you need to adjust the front side bus (FSB) and sometimes the Cpu core voltage( Vcore). As you overclock more extremely , you may need to adjust the memory voltage and maybe even the AGP voltage. I personally try to stay away from getting that extreme as , well, my system stability is of utmost concern....even with overclocking. With that in mind, The two P4's in question here are spec'd like this...

   Now, I know that just about every decent motherboard on the market today will have a PCI divider to support a 133fsb operation. What that will do is re-adjust the speeds of the PCI slots to operate at their spec'd 66mhz even though the fsb mhz speed has changed. This is a VERY important feature to have, especially in this case. So if I can find the right P4 Cpu that will overclock high enough, I can run my other stuff in spec and only overclock the Cpu.

   What that will mean is much improved system stability, so long as the Cpu can handle it. Let's take a look at what these two P4's will look like if I simply adjusted each one to a 133fsb...

   You can see the incredible difference in mhz you can achieve if you research and buy the right components, AND you get alittle lucky :o) Since all the motherboards I was considering had 133fsb support, that wasn't an issue. I went in search of real people experience with the motherboards and Cpu's I was considering. There were two options of memory support on the market for the P4 which includes the RDRAM ( rambus) and the newer support of DDRAM( DDR) . Both memory types were fairly similair in price, but it seemed to me that the DDR was more overclockable. RDRAM does have the ultimate bandwidth lead and is truley the memory the P4 was designed for with its Quad pumped front side bus (400mhz fsb), But this time, I was going for raw overclockability and the DDR was the way to go.

   I found, by listening to "Real" users, that the ASUS P4B266 was the most stable motherboard when overclocking and just had practically zero issues, even when paired with the brand new "northwood" P4. I say it that way since alot of users of other boards were reporting they had boot issues with their new board and cpu including the board not recognizing the northwoods requiring some to actually pay for a new bios update from the manufacturer! ugh!. With me rest assured that the ASUS name was upholding in the "world's most stabile motheboard" arena, It came down to what features you would want on a new board.

   Myself, I like the boards lean and mean. I have a sound card, ethernet card, etc....why would I need to buy them? I didn't so...I didn't! Since the motherboard debate could go on forever, I'm gonna sum it up by telling you I stopped by Directron.com and picked up the ASUS P4B266-C and an P4 1.8A Cpu. I bought from Directron for a couple of reasons, one being immediate shipment and the second being the service. Before I could finish my purchase ( yes, I actually bought this stuff ), I needed was some DDR ram. Since this was all really an "experiment" for me moving to the P4 platform, and I wasn't sure how well "my" particular chip would overclock, I just picked up one 256MB stick of PC2100 from directron with the purchase.

   I knew PC2100 was rated for a 133fsb and that's all I needed to test the P4. If it overclocked to that, I'd know I had a decent chip and would then proceed to get some killer ram. To start though, basic DDR it was. I also decided on a Antec SX1000 Server case for the P4 system. (same as 1030 but does not include PSU). I got mine without a PSU since I had an Enermax 330w

   Purchase Complete! Ok, hardwares bought and here's the specs and prices at the time of purchase ( subject to change )

   I could reuse everything else currently in my system so the conversion from a Pentium III platform to a Pentium IV platform wasn't bad at all. Another great thing about the ASUS P4B2666-C is the fact that you do NOT need a P4 power supply. There is an attachment on the motherboard to plug in an extra molex connection to provide the extra juice. :o)