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Overclocking the Pentium 4 520 2.8GHz to 3.57GHz

Geoff Gasior
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IF YOU’VE BEEN paying attention over the last few months, you’ve no doubt noticed that AMD’s latest Athlon 64s trounce Intel’s newest Pentium 4s almost across the board. That’s a real shame considering that Intel’s 900-series chipsets bring so much to the table, including PCI Express, advanced Serial ATA and RAID features, and high-definition audio. There could be hope for Intel fanboys, though. Since the Pentium 4 500 line stretches from 2.8 to 3.6GHz, lower speed grades may have considerable overclocking headroom just waiting to be exploited.

How much headroom? I got an extra 770MHz out of my Pentium 4 520 2.8GHz, which is quite comfortable running at 3.57GHz with stock air cooling—not bad for a chip that costs less than $160. Could a little help from the overclocking fairy make the Pentium 4 520 2.8GHz a formidable contender against the Athlon 64? Read on to find out.

The overclock
The Pentium 4 520 2.8GHz processor we’ll be overclocking today is an off-the-shelf retail unit that wasn’t cherry-picked or pretested for overclocking potential. I also shied away from using more extreme cooling solutions in favor of Intel’s stock LGA775 cooler. Water cooling, volt-modding, or other more extreme measures may be able to take the processor further, but they’re quite a bit more involved and expensive than our stock setup.


The Pentium 4 520 2.8GHz

Since Intel has gone to great lengths to hinder overclocking with its 900-series chipsets, choosing an appropriate motherboard is essential. In the end, I settled on Abit’s AG8 for several reasons. First, the AG8 offers more tweaking and overclocking options than any other LGA775 motherboard I’ve encountered. The board also supports DDR400 memory, and at only $125, keeps with our budget theme.

It also happens that my Pentium 4 520 2.8GHz is perfectly stable on the AG8 with a 255MHz front-side bus, yielding a processor speed of 3.57GHz. Reaching 3.57GHz required a couple of tweaks, though. First, I had to bump the processor voltage up from 1.3375 to 1.4125V. That’s not a big boost, but the system wasn’t stable without it. I also had to swap in memory capable of running on a 255MHz front-side bus. A pair of PC4400 sticks rated to 550MHz DDR did the trick, but with a little extra baggage in the form of more relaxed timings. The PC4400 memory has 2.5-4-4-8 timings, while the PC3200 memory I use at stock speeds runs with tighter 2-2-2-5 timings.

Unfortunately, even fancy high-end memory has problems running with 2-2-2-5 timings on a 255MHz front-side bus, so we’ll have to make do with 2.5-4-4-8 timings while running at 3.57GHz.


3.57GHz with stock air cooling and only 1.41V, not bad at all

Of course, no discussion of overclocking would be complete without the usual disclaimer. Overclocking success can depend as much on the unique characteristics of individual system components as it can on the proper alignment of planets and pure, unadulterated luck. Just because I was able to get my Pentium 4 520 2.8GHz stable at 3.57GHz doesn’t mean that every chip will overclock as high, or that other chips won’t go higher. As always, your mileage may vary.

Now, let’s see how overclocked Pentium 4 performed.

 

Our testing methods
As ever, we did our best to deliver clean benchmark numbers. Tests were run at least twice, and the results were averaged.

Our test systems were configured like so:

Processor Athlon 64 3200+ 2.0GHz (S939)
Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2GHz (90nm)
Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2GHz (130nm)
Athlon 64 3800+ 2.4GHz
Athlon 64 4000+ 2.4GHz
Athlon 64 FX-55 2.6GHz
Pentium 4 540 3.2GHz
Pentium 4 550 3.4GHz
Pentium 4 560 3.6GHz
Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.4GHz
Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.46GHz Pentium 4 520 2.8GHz
System bus 1GHz HyperTransport 800MHz (200MHz quad-pumped) 1066MHz (266MHz quad-pumped) 800MHz (200MHz quad-pumped)
Motherboard Asus A8V Deluxe Abit AA8 DuraMax Intel D925XECV2 Abit AG8
BIOS revision 1008 beta 1 1.4 CV92510A.86A.0338 15
North bridge K8T800 Pro 925X MCH 925XE MCH 915P MCH
South bridge VT8237 ICH6R ICH6R ICH6R
Chipset drivers 4-in-1 v.1.11 beta (9/7/04) INF Update 6.0.1.1002
IAA for RAID 4.5.0.6515
INF Update 6.0.1.1002
IAA for RAID 4.5.0.6515
INF Update 6.0.1.1002
IAA for RAID 4.5.0.6515
Memory size 1GB (2 DIMMs) 1GB (2 DIMMs) 1GB (2 DIMMs) 1GB (2 DIMMs)
Memory type OCZ PC3200 EL DDR SDRAM at 400MHz OCZ PC2 5300 DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz OCZ PC2 5300 DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz OCZ PC3200 EL DDR SDRAM at 400MHz
CAS latency 2 3 3 2
Cycle time 5 10 10 5
RAS to CAS delay 2 3 3 2
RAS precharge 2 3 3 2
Hard drive Maxtor MaXLine III 250GB SATA 150 WD Raptor WD360GB SATA 150
Audio Integrated VT8237/ALC850 with 3.64 drivers Integrated ICH6R/ALC880 with 5.10.0.5022 drivers Integrated ICH6R/ALC880 with 5.10.0.5032 drivers Integrated ICH6R/ALC658
Graphics GeForce 6800 GT 256MB with ForceWare 66.81 drivers
OS Microsoft Windows XP Professional
OS updates Service Pack 2, DirectX 9.0c

We’ll be looking at the Pentium 4 520’s performance at both 2.8 and 3.57GHz and comparing those results to the fastest Pentium 4 and Athlon 64 processors on the market. At 2.8GHz, the Pentium 4 520 system used 2-2-2-5 memory timings and a quad-pumped 800MHz front-side bus. When running at 3.57GHz, the system used a 255MHz front-side bus (1020MHz, quad-pumped) and 2.5-4-4-8 memory timings. That gives the 3.57GHz chip an advantage in both processor and front-side bus speed, but a disadvantage when it comes to memory timings.

I should also point out that the Pentium 4 520 system used a WD Raptor WD360GD hard drive rather than a Maxtor MaXLine III. Disk subsystem performance only affects a few of our tests, so for those, we’ll only be comparing the Pentium 4 520 at 2.8GHz and 3.57GHz.

All tests on the Intel systems were run with Hyper-Threading enabled.

Thanks to OCZ for providing us with memory for our testing. If you’re looking to tweak out your system to the max and maybe overclock it a little, OCZ’s RAM is definitely worth considering.

The test systems’ Windows desktops were set at 1152×864 in 32-bit color at an 85Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests.

We used the following versions of our test applications:

The tests and methods we employ are generally publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.

 
Memory performance

At 3.57GHz, our Pentium 4 520’s overclocked front-side bus yields impressive memory bandwidth, especially in Cachemem.

Our overclocked chip closely mirrors the Linpack performance of the Pentium 3 560 3.6GHz, which looks about right considering that the chips are clocked within 30MHz of each other. Let’s clear out some of the results and take a closer look at how our overclock helps the Pentium 4 520’s performance.

Now there’s a nice jump. Notice how our overclocked chip is not only faster with smaller matrix sizes that fit within the processor’s L1 and L2 caches, but also with larger matrices that overflow into main memory.

Despite running its memory with more relaxed memory timings, our Pentium 4 520 at 3.57GHz scores well in Cachemem’s latency tests. Lower memory latencies can be achieved through tighter timings, higher memory clock speeds, or both. Based on our Cachemem latency results, it’s clear that the 3.57GHz chip’s overclocked memory and faster bus more than make up for its more relaxed memory timings.

 

Doom 3
Let’s get right down to the gaming results now with Doom 3. We tested using a custom-recorded demo that should be fairly representative of most of the single-player gameplay in Doom 3.

Not even our overclocked Pentium 4 can touch AMD’s mid-range Athlon 64 processors in Doom 3.

Far Cry
Our Far Cry demo takes place on the Pier level, in one of those massive, open outdoor areas so common in this game. Vegetation is dense, and view distances can be very long.

The Far Cry results are much like Doom 3. The Pentium 4 520 at 3.57GHz is just a little bit slower than the Pentium 4 560 3.6GHz. Overclocking vastly improves the chip’s performance from 2.8GHz, though.

 

Counter-Strike: Source
This is a final, release version of Counter-Strike: Source that we’re using, available for purchase via Valve’s Steam distribution system. Our demo game takes place on the cs_italy map.

The Pentium 4 520 at 3.57GHz pulls to within a hair of the Athlon 64 3200+ in Counter-Strike: Source, which isn’t all that impressive.

Unreal Tournament 2004
Our UT2004 demo shows Damage putting the smack down on some bots in an Onslaught game.

In Unreal Tournament 2004, our overclocked chip is actually a little slower than the Pentium 4 550 3.4GHz, suggesting that a faster front-side bus won’t be the silver bullet that saves the Pentium 4’s dreary gaming performance.

 

3DMark05

3DMark05’s CPU tests show the Pentium 4 520 at 3.57GHz in a slightly better light, but the Athlon 64s are a tough act to follow.

 

WorldBench performance
WorldBench uses scripting to step through a series of tasks in common Windows applications and produces an overall score for comparison. More impressively, WorldBench spits out individual results for its component application tests, allowing us to compare performance in each. We’ll look at the overall score, and then we’ll show individual application results alongside the results from some of our own application tests.

Since some of WorldBench’s tests are influenced by disk subsystem performance, we’ll limit our comparisons to the Pentium 4 520 at 2.8GHz and 3.57GHz.

As expected, an extra 770MHz makes quite a bit of difference in WorldBench’s overall score. Let’s break down there overall tests and see where overclocking has the biggest impact.

Clock speed helps more in some tests than others. WorldBench’s Nero Express test is clearly not processor-bound, and clock speed appears to have only a minimal impact on Microsoft Office performance.

Media encoding

LAME MP3 encoding
We used LAME to encode a 101MB 16-bit, 44KHz audio file into a very high-quality MP3. The exact command-line options we used were:

lame –alt-preset extreme file.wav file.mp3

Clock speed certainly matters for MP3 encoding, but the Pentium 4 520 at 3.57GHz just barely bests the Athlon 64 3500+.

XMPEG DivX video encoding
We used the default settings for the DivX codec to encode a 3000-frame sequence from a DVD-formatted MPEG2 source file.

The 3.57GHz chip fares much better in our DivX encoding tests, where it comes out a hair ahead of the Pentium 4 560 3.6GHz. Note the substantial performance improvement over the Pentium 4 520 at stock speed.

 

Image processing

picCOLOR
We thank Dr. Reinert Muller with the FIBUS Institute for pointing us toward his picCOLOR benchmark. This image analysis and processing tool is partially multithreaded, and it shows us the results of a number of simple image manipulation calculations. We’re using a new build of picCOLOR this time out; it removes the video tests, which are highly dependent on the chipset and video card, from the calculation of the overall score.

Prescott has always been a strong performer in our image processing test, and the Pentium 4 520 at 3.57GHz is no exception. Here’s how picCOLOR’s individual tests break down:

Extra MHz helps in all of picCOLOR’s tests, although it has a bigger impact in some than in others.

Other applications

Sphinx speech recognition
Ricky Houghton first brought us the Sphinx benchmark through his association with speech recognition efforts at Carnegie Mellon University. Sphinx is a high-quality speech recognition routine. We use two different versions, built with two different compilers, in an attempt to ensure we’re getting the best possible performance.

Our overclocked Pentium 4 races to third place in Sphinx. The Pentium 4s largely dominate this test, although the Athlon 64s aren’t far behind.

 

3D modeling and rendering

Cinebench 2003
Cinebench is based on Maxon’s Cinema 4D modeling, rendering, and animation app. This revision of Cinebench measures performance in a number of ways, including 3D rendering, software shading, and OpenGL shading with and without hardware acceleration. Cinema 4D’s renderer is multithreaded, so it takes advantage of Hyper-Threading, as you can see in the results.

Overclocking takes a big bite out of rendering times in Cinebench 2003, where the Hyper-Threading Pentium 4 520 at 3.57GHz beats even the Athlon 64 FX 55.

The overclocked chip doesn’t do as well in Cinebench’s OpenGL shading tests, although it’s quite fast in CINEMA 4D shading.

 

Power consumption
Power consumption matters, so I hooked the Pentium 4 520 system up to my trusty watt meter and measured power consumption at idle and under a Cinebench 2003 rendering load. There are a few differences between my Pentium 4 520 system and the test systems for the other Pentium 4 and Athlon 64 processors that could affect power consumption, though. Those systems used an OCZ PowerStream 470W power supply, while I used an OCZ 520W unit. I also used a Raptor WD360GD hard drive with the Pentium 4 520; the other systems used a Maxtor MaxLine III drive.

There are additional caveats that affect the Pentium 4 and Athlon 64 systems that you can read more about on this page of our Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.46GHz processor review.

So the power consumption results are comparable, except where they’re not. At the very least, we can directly compare power consumption for the Pentium 4 520 at 2.8 and 3.57GHz.

Although I expected the overclocked processor to consume more power due to the fact that it’s running at a slightly higher voltage (1.4125V at 3.57GHz as opposed to 1.3375V at 2.8GHz), I didn’t think we’d see such a large gap in power consumption under load.

 
Conclusions
For a $160 processor, the Pentium 4 520 at 3.57GHz performs quite well. The chip was nearly as fast as the Pentium 4 560 3.6GHz, which costs almost three times as much. If I could guarantee that every P4 520 would run comfortably at almost 3.6GHz, I’d be inclined to recommend it to overclocking enthusiasts. The fact that I was able to hit 3.57GHz with stock air cooling and only a minor voltage tweak at least suggests that the Pentium 4 520 has headroom to spare, but finding a motherboard that will get around Intel’s chipset-level anti-overclocking measures may be the greatest challenge in overclocking the thing.

Still, the Pentium 4 520’s performance is largely unremarkable, even with an extra 770MHz on its side. Prescott remains a strong performer with 3D rendering and video encoding applications, but for gaming, you’re better off with a mid-range Athlon 64. I should also mention that the Pentium 4 520’s temperature-controlled processor fan spun significantly louder at 3.57GHz than it did at 2.8GHz. Even at 2.8GHz, the Pentium 4 520’s cooling fan is louder than my Athlon 64 3500+’s stock cooler.

On a more academic note, our overclocking results hint at what Prescott’s performance might look like with a 1066MHz front-side bus. The fact that we used high-latency DDR400 memory makes comparing our 3.57GHz chip to the Pentium 4 560 3.6GHz a little dicey, but based on our results, it doesn’t look like a faster front-side bus would help Prescott all that much. Perhaps it’s best that the upcoming Pentium 4 600 series is rumored to get an L2 cache boost up to 2MB rather than a front-side bus bump to 1066MHz. 

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