I am currently running a P4 Northwood 3.0Ghz @ 3.4Ghz 227x15 and I am thinking of purchase the P4 Prescott 3.4Ghz. The big question/s will I see an improvement in FS9 and can I overclock the Prescott to 3.85 227x17?Regards,Andrew.

Frankly, I don't think bumping 400 mhz is worth the trouble...I don't see the increase as being very large. The reason I say this,is I've clocked my 2.4 to 3.2, and the difference wasn't that largeat all. A better video card would make more difference in my case. As far as the O/C, who knows, but myself, I wouldn't doubt it would do 3.8, if it's sold as a 3.4...My 2.4 prescott overclocks like crazy.I've had it over 3.2, and it didn't bat an eye. I'm sure I could go higher, if I had better ram. But....I can't run it that fast in FS, as I get the random video card errors...For some reason, my vid card does not like the increased bus speeds when o/c'ed. But whats really goofy, is it only seems to do it running 3D in the sim...Otherwise, in windows, it's totally stable...That leads me to believe my video card is the problem in FS when o/c'ed, rather than my ram or cpu...If I was already at 3.0, I wouldn't bother upgrading unless it was at least 4.0 or higher...But thats just me...At these high speeds, it takes a *lot* of increase to see a noticable difference. For FS2004, the video card is probably more important than the CPU...Nearly anyway...MKBTW...yes, I have tried locking my bus speeds in the bios...Didn't seemto cure the errors...MK

My system has a 2.8 ghz Northwood OC'd presently to 3.3ghz or thereabouts. I've had it over 3.4 ghz with the 2 x 512 sticks of Geil PC400 DDR500 ram I have and the only time it has crashed at that speed is in the second CPU test in 3DMark03. Sometimes on a restart it will refuse to boot but otherwise it is reasonably stable. My understanding of the Prescott Core CPU is that it's voltage is locked and that it does'nt particularly like being pushed for that reason.I built a system for a relative with a 3.0ghz Prescott and had a play with voltages but the OC'ing did'nt amount to much, so I'd stick with the Northwood core and buy better periferals ie: High speed, low latency ram and as the previous person recommended, a better GPU.One aspect of the Prescott impressed me and that is its level 3 cache. Most programs and apps seemed to load more quickly.Frankly, I'd outlay as much money as possible on as high an end GPU as you can afford. One that's OCable if possible. My 'holy grail' at present is a Gainward 6800 GT Ultra but expect it to be up there in the price range.Keep in mind that we will not be having this conversation very soon as CPU's will be going 'dual core'. This because the present technology seems to have hit the wall at around 4 ghz.Jon

I don't think it's worth it Andrew. Even if you can get the extra 400Mhz it isn't going to help all that much. And the downside is the extra heat generated by the Prescott. Unless you have a case that runs very, very cool you may not be able to get the Prescott OC'd on air alone. If it were me, I'd stay where you are now.DougP4 3.0C SL6WK @ 3.54 (1.475 VCore - 236 FSB) / Asus P4C800-E Deluxe (BIOS 1019) / 2x512MB Corsair TWINX CXM3700 (3-4-4-8) / 4x120GB WD 7200 IDE)/ Hercules 9800 Pro (128MB @ 405/351) / A-Open 1648/AAP DVD Ripper / Plextor708A DVD Writer/ Enermax 431W PSU / Inwin Case / Intel HSF