Author Topic: Bit hacked off (Read 484 times)

FOGOLD · « **on:** February 12, 2003, 08:25:20 AM »

Its funny, but Im a bit hacked off about this. My MSI K7T266 Pro2 1800XP setup is about 15 months old now and I was beginning to eye up upgrade paths. XP2400+ processors are soon gonna drop below the £100 mark, and that looked great. But, hey what do you know, the board won't support the .13 Thoroughbred chip even with the latest BIOS. This is a pretty short lifespan for what was a top line board. Jeez, I was able to double my old BX440 processor speed before it ran out of steam (PIII600 - still my work machine). Its simply not worth upgrading from 1800XP to 2100XP.

Apparently theres a fix whih involves ripping out a transistor or something, but to hell with that!

Just letting off steam:D

OZkansas · « **Reply #1 on:** February 12, 2003, 10:42:58 AM »

Intel is the only way to go:)

bloom25 · « **Reply #2 on:** February 12, 2003, 09:58:59 PM »

If he had went Intel he wouldn't even be able to upgrade that far.

(Honestly, a 2 GHz Willamette would be it.)

You do realize there are already 2 mechanically incompatible sockets for the P4, 423 and 478. There are also 2 different FSB speeds (soon to be 3), 400 MHz, 533 MHz, and soon 800 MHz. There is also the question of Northwood support and Hyperthreading support. In the time frame that FOGOLD has had that machine, there have also been two other P3 revisions.

During that time, AMD has had one socket - socket 462. Unfortunately, some of the newer Athlons won't work on "older" boards.

I wouldn't worry about it too much FOGOLD, an 1800 is still plenty fast. Any system you buy today, either Intel or AMD at this point is not going to be that upgradable as far as future CPU support. We got spoiled in the past with the Athlon Tbirds and early XPs. Intel plans to move to a new design P4 later this year (Prescott) which uses a new chipset (Springdale). I believe 3.2 GHz will be the fastest CPU that current i845PE and E7502 (Granite Bay) boards will be able to support. The same goes for AMD, the fastest Athlon XP on the roadmaps is a 3200+ due out in several months. The Athlon 64 is supposed to launch in September, which of course uses a totally different socket than the Athlon XP.

FOGOLD · « **Reply #3 on:** February 13, 2003, 01:57:12 AM »

Yeah, I'm not that much of an upgrade obsessive.

I was spoilt by being able to go from a PII350 to a PIII600 on my old machine and from same PII350 on my son's machine to a Celeron 800 overclocked to 900! Actually the old slot 1 boards are excellent to upgrade with a slocket, even though a lot of early BX boards wont support a Geforce properly.

FOGOLD · « **Reply #4 on:** February 13, 2003, 02:30:52 AM »

Thanks for the kind, undersatnding words:D

Vermillion · « **Reply #5 on:** February 13, 2003, 08:34:48 AM »

Anymore, I just consider a "processor upgrade" to automatically include a new motherboard and memory. Its the nature of the beast.

FOGOLD · « **Reply #6 on:** February 13, 2003, 11:09:00 AM »

that's probably about right these days. It works out cheaper these days, plus with more than one PC in a business/home there's great scope for handing down.

Hajo · « **Reply #7 on:** February 13, 2003, 12:33:52 PM »

Vermillion

I concur. When I upgrade, I do it new mobo and all and use the older mobo, cpu, and RAM to build another system.

I ususally upgrade every year and a half....so my secondary systems are still quite functional.....plus my son always has a PC that is current. Usually most everything bought off the shelf is a year to 6 months behind anyway.

FOGOLD · « **Reply #8 on:** February 13, 2003, 05:00:21 PM »

You always end up with stuff though. Ive got a PII 350, a Voodoo2, an ATI Rage pro kicking around. I guess thats not too bad.

I still plan to use them (not the Voodoo) for a work-related machine sometime. I still use aVoodoo 3 on my PIII600 work machine. It's fine. I was so flushed with pride when I first got that card!