Author Topic: AMD CPU question (Read 388 times)

Airscrew · « **on:** January 26, 2007, 03:33:49 PM »

I want to upgrade but I'm not ready to build a completly new system yet so I want to try and upgrade my CPU. Currently running ABit NF7-S with AMD Athon XP 2400. What kinda of choices do I have to upgrade my CPU? Abit site says AMD Athlon\Athlon XP with the bus speeds 100/133/166 MHz; Socket 462.
some quick looks on Ebay I only see alot of Barton core at 333mhz from 2800 to 3200 and I was thinking I read a year or so ago that those would not work on my mb. Any suggestions?

I'm also partial to upgrading MB and CPU but only if I can still use my memory and AGP video card

any ideas?

Roscoroo · « **Reply #1 on:** January 26, 2007, 04:16:27 PM »

I dont thing your gonna see the increase your looking for unless you
step up to a duo core , or other 64 bit cpu mb combo ...

the difference between switching from a 2400+ to a 3200+ barton combo isnt enough really to justify the cost IMO . the NF7 is a 333 speed btw ,,not my fav board because of its quirks but it is very overclockable .

your 2400+ w/ 1 gig of ram is still a very capable pc .

Airscrew · « **Reply #2 on:** January 26, 2007, 04:33:05 PM »

I agree the board is ok, I have a gig of ram, thinking of adding another gig. I upgraded my video card from a nvida 5200 to 6200, frame rates went from about 30 to 70. I was just looking to extend this one a little longer. I tried overclocking when I first got the motherboard but I dont understand overclocking was wasnt willing to use this one as a "learning tool"

I just thinking I might get just a little bit more out of it if I upgrade the CPU. so if the board is 333mhz I can use CPUs with 333mhz FSB?
I ran across a deal on 3200 for about $30

Eagler · « **Reply #3 on:** January 26, 2007, 05:25:18 PM »

another gig of ram and everything will seem alittle quicker
AH will run better with it too

Keeler101 · « **Reply #4 on:** January 26, 2007, 09:34:35 PM »

an idea to look at would be go with this 939 board

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813157097

which may let you keep you vc and ram and go to a 3500+ or so.., OC it and you still can upgrade your VC to pcie later, and a dual core cpu, i think the dual core really helps AH probly more than OC a single core

But 939 may become harder and harder to find!! with a pcie slot and ram with a 3500+or dual core i feel you could play AH for a long time to come

The dual core will show great gains, but most other stuff dont use it yet

Airscrew · « **Reply #5 on:** January 26, 2007, 11:48:08 PM »

Thanks Eagler, I probably go with another gig for now, but Keeler's suggestion looks good and maybe I'll start looking for one of those.
and that 3200 I saw turns out it was just a LED cooling fan...

eagl · « **Reply #6 on:** January 27, 2007, 01:23:09 AM »

An alternative to going AMD to replace an older athlonXP...

ASROCK has a nifty little intel board that matches core 2 duo with AGP and either DDR or DDR2 memory. So you could keep your existing components for a while longer and upgrade to the fastest cpu around.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813157092

It's only $57, and matched with a core 2 duo of any speed, you'd have a huge cpu speedup for very little money. A total system refresh will cost you over $1000 so this might be a way to upgrade without tons of money.

Plus when you do decide to make the jump to pci-e and DDR2, you could still use that core 2 duo cpu and the only new thing you toss out is the $57 mobo. Or that mobo is so flexible, you could upgrade the components one at a time right on that mobo, and hold off on a *good* mobo until you have all the necessary components to totally switch to DDR2 and pci-e.

Even with this asrock board you'll probably want a new power supply, but you can get a really nice one for $100 or less. I went overboard and got a seasonic modular power supply for about $160 to help with cable management, but you can get something cheaper and be ok. I really like the seasonic power supplies, and this is what I got:

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16817151030

A more suitable one for an incremental upgrade might be this for $89:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817151023

430 watts ought to be fine unless you want to be able to go for an 8800 vid card, in which case you might want something more like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817151027

Anandtech reviewed this ASROCK mobo and found that it to be very comparable in speed to an equivalent pci-e and DDR2 system. In other words, ddr400 on this board was similiar (slightly slower but close) to DDR2 566, and an agp 6800 ultra was just as fast or faster than a pci-e 6800 ultra.

You can get this mobo and a core2 duo for around $250...

airspro · « **Reply #7 on:** January 27, 2007, 04:25:13 AM »

Nice write up eagl

I really giving this
CPU

with that arock board

Only thing that scares me off is having to purchace WinXP again . I would have to correct ?

eagl · « **Reply #8 on:** January 27, 2007, 04:37:29 AM »

You would definately have to re-validate your XP installation, but I think that a phone call to MS would clear that up without you having to buy a new XP license. Just tell them your old mobo/cpu died and you had to replace it. As long as most of the other stuff in your system is the same, it ought to be fine.

Back up everything FIRST!

You will have to re-install windows, but you might be able to get away with a "repair" installation. Just istart windows setup normally and don't choose the initial poorly-worded "repair" setup which just dumps you to a command prompt. When it asks where to install windows, select the folder where your existing windows installation is. It will detect the existing installation and ask if you want to wipe and start from scratch, or attempt to re-install over the existing installation. The re-installation might work just fine.

Make sure you have a good backup first though... I have also used MS windows backup to do this. As a worst case scenario, first run MS windows backup before you do anything. Then if the repair installation doesn't work, do a complete new installation and then restore the windows backup on top of the new installation. That worked fine for me except for a little bit of chasing driver versions. But don't rely on MS windows backup alone though. Save off all your data and any downloaded application installers, license codes, config files, etc. in a separate place. A separate hard drive is probably the easiest, but you could also create some backup DVDs if you have a burner and a lot of spare time.

eagl

Airscrew · « **Reply #9 on:** January 27, 2007, 09:59:06 AM »

thanks for the info eagl, it certainly gives me some options. I'm using a 500w PS now that I got a few months ago to replace my antec ps that failed.

eagl · « **Reply #10 on:** January 27, 2007, 11:54:47 AM »

My guess is that the 500w PSU should work fine. You could see a huge speedup for under $300.

SkyGnome · « **Reply #11 on:** January 28, 2007, 10:35:39 PM »

If you're even vaguely brave, an athlon XP mobile CPU is a great thing to grab. I see a 2500+ from pcprogress for $70. The cool bit is that you can just set the CPU multiplier in the bios (most bioses.. check first), and most overclock to 3200+ levels and beyond. No mucking with socket mods or anything silly... just select how fast you want it to run. Also check that your bios supports barton core CPUs.

Unless you're using 1024 textures, I wouldn't recommend going for 2gig. It might help prevent a few stutters durring your first 15 minutes, but will do nothing after that. Much better off to save your dough for the next real upgrade .