Worth upgrading?

[b1g1an]

Worth upgrading?

[b1g1an]

My 3401 currently has a 2.8 Northwood but I could upgrade this to a 3.0 Prescott at no cost other than the hassle of doing it. Would it be worth the effort and are there still heat problems with these, I've already got a 9800xt in there.

Cheers, Ian

[modwheel]

please don´t upgrade to an prescott 3 GHz monster, this causes a lot of heat in your baby. Try overclocking your 2.8 NW - select FSB 220 for ex.

[$AR-1]

The current incarnation of Prescotts perform no better than than the Northwood C and will run very hot, especially in a SFF.  You would basically be wasting money for a new processor and possibly more cooling components.  Besides, your video card is probably more of a bottleneck.  Overclocking would probably be a better option if you are comfortable with that.

[b1g1an]

I know the current Prescotts run cooler than they did as previously I wouldn't have considered it but wondered what "cooler" actually meant from an SFF viewpoint. Recently built a tower with one in and nothing special on the cooling front and was getting very good temps.

$AR-1, I'm not actually looking for more performance but, as I said, the processor will cost me nothing and wondered if it was worth the effort, this is, obviously, a step up to a 3.0 regardless of incarnation.