The Pentium 4 is now probably the #1 choice for most enthusiasts, mainly because of the Northwood core's awesome overclocking potential and strong performance vs. the AMD Athlon XP. Each new core revision has brought better and better results with yet more overclocking potential. With the 800MHz chips I have to admit to being rather sceptical about overclocking potential, due to the insanely fast stock bus speed, but there have been enough results on the web claiming just the opposite to convince me that a 2.4C 800 is a good buy if coupled with a friendly board.
Based on the new D1 stepping, this Pentium differs little from its 3.0C flagship stable mate. They both have a stock voltage default of 1.55V, they both have full hyper-threading support and, most importantly of all, they feature the new 200MHz internal clock speed, quad pumped to 800MHz thanks to Intel's now famous Net Burst architecture. We won't dwell on architecture, as this remains largely unchanged, but those of you who are interested can read an excellent article on the intricacies of Hyper Threading and the P4 pipeline here at [H]
The stepping of this chip is SL6WF. The nice chaps at Chillblast cherry-picked this one out for me and it cost me a snip at £134.50 ex VAT. They have also since then put up a bundle of an IC7, a special stepping 2.4C800 and some Arctic Silver for £239.50. If you quote OcPrices in your order they will even give you free shipping =) - the things I negotiate for you loyal readers!
