AMD processors...advice on upgrades please.

[optinox]

Hi all,

I currently have an AMD Athlon XP 2400+ processor (Thourobred-B), my motherboard is a Gigabyte 7DX-R which can only support up to a AMD AthlonXP 2600+(.13u) 266 FSB...my question is, if I decided to upgrade, would my mobo be able to handle a AMD Athlon 2600+ mobile cpu rather than the regular 2600+ cpu? And also, would it just be worth my while to upgrade my mobo so that I will be able to support the latest versions of AMD Athlon cpu's? I currently also have 512 DDR PC 3200 Ram, hopefully I can get some advice, thanks!

[John Prophet]

an important question is "what do you use the computer for?"

gaming, business apps, video editing, cd burning, surfing?

anyway, some of that will make a difference....

also maybe a q would be "where do you think the computer is lacking now--where does it need improvement?"

[Front242]

If you want to stay in the 32 bit range, you can get a MOBO fairly cheap. Why would you want to exchange for a mobile cpu? Upgrade to a 2500 Barton and you can overclock pretty easy.

[jmichna]

The mobile Bartons handle overclocking quite well, but your mobo may be the bottleneck, as (I'm pretty sure) it's an AMD 761 chipset. Supposedly, you can reach fsb speeds of 250mHz, so you do have some OC head room. The chief advantage is the mobile Bartons XP-M2500 and XP-M2600 for example, run at 1.45vCore so they will run significantly cooler at a given speed setting, since you will need less "juice" to get them to that speed. Unless you overclock, I don't think you'd see much, if any, real world performance difference between the CPU you have and a 2600 mobile.

Here's a pretty good review of your mobo, page 3 talks about OCing abilities:
http://www.amdmb.com/article-display.php?ArticleID=84

[John Prophet]

if you are running an amd 761 then you could defintely plan a board upgrade..cuz that chipset is like 4 or 5 generations back....nothing wrong with it, but you would want to plan your upgrade around a newer board

[nurdonsite2]

i recommend that u upgrade ur motherboard because u will notice basically no real world preformance between ur 2400+ and a mobile 2600+. (i know this since i have my 2500+ overclocked to 3200+ and hardely notice a difference during regular usage). anyway, getting a new mobo will allow u to oveclock ur 2400+ and give u a better and faster chipset. also giving u more head room for upgrading in the future.

[samwichse]

Note too, if you get a 400 mhz FSB capable board, AMD will soon be releasing K8-cored Athlon's for Socket A with the 64 bit chunks chopped out, so there will be an upgrade path.

Sam

[sweeper2]

Hi all,

I currently have an AMD Athlon XP 2400+ processor (Thourobred-B), my motherboard is a Gigabyte 7DX-R which can only support up to a AMD AthlonXP 2600+(.13u) 266 FSB...my question is, if I decided to upgrade, would my mobo be able to handle a AMD Athlon 2600+ mobile cpu rather than the regular 2600+ cpu? And also, would it just be worth my while to upgrade my mobo so that I will be able to support the latest versions of AMD Athlon cpu's? I currently also have 512 DDR PC 3200 Ram, hopefully I can get some advice, thanks!

Okay, just edited my post...your mb can only support up to 266 FSB, your 2400 is 266, but a 2600 is 333 FSB, so if you upgrade to a 2600 you would have to upgrade your MB also, I would go for a 2500 athlon xp with a decent 400 FSB MB. see my setup below....

I run a 2500 Athlon XP @ 11X200= Athlon XP 3200
I also run a MSI K7N2 Delta L nForce2 chipset (I would recommend a nForce2 chipset) 400 edition motherboard and 512 of DDR400(pc3200) in dual channel (supported by this MB)

[jmichna]

Note too, if you get a 400 mhz FSB capable board, AMD will soon be releasing K8-cored Athlon's for Socket A with the 64 bit chunks chopped out, so there will be an upgrade path.

Sam

Sam,
Will those be pin-compatible with Socket A mobos? Any idea when? Do you have any links?
TIA,
jmichna

[samwichse]

Oh, sorry, here's the link.