prescott, i know everyone says this over and over and it gets tiresome but this could have been more easily found on google. i remember reading that there is an odd crossover in performance between the two of the cores depending on their clock speed. from what i understand at lower clockspeeds the northwood equals or perhaps even beats the prescott but anything over ~3.5ghz and the prescott becomes the clear winner. but overall the prescott is better. the prescott overclocks a heck of a lot better and doesn't suffer from "NDS"