A7V333-X: What is the fastest processor it supports?

David Holcomb · Sep 14, 2004

I have the 1004 BIOS running an Athlon 1900+ processor right now. I haven't tried any overclocking since I've read that until the
Athlon XP 2200 (I think), there was no special heat protection circuitry on the processors to guarantee that the chips would not fry
themselves.

According to the manual, the motherboard supports "Socket A for AMD Athlon XP/Athlon/Duron up to 2.8GHz+.

Since AMD normally uses their own processor numbering (e.g. 1900+, 2600+, 3200+), does that mean the motherboard only supports up to
an Athlon XP 2800+ processor, or does it really support up to the real frequency of 2.8GHz? And if so, does the manual say "+"
because you can overclock it, or does the plus mean something else?

If it supports up to a real 2.8GHz, then I assume it can take almost any AthlonXP processor available today (with a 333Mhz FSB),
since the fastest one I've seen with matching FSB speed is the Athlon XP 3000+ (operating at 2.167GHz)

Ahh, nevermind, I just found there is a link on the ASUS web site which actually tells me specifically which processors currently
released are supported by my motherboard!

http://www2.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/1,,30_182_869_4348^7923,00.html?1091063312

Here is the info for the A7V333-X motherboard:
http://www2.amd.com/us-en/recmobo/DetailHandler/1,,,00.html?queryID=68047

I also found a nice chart with all the real processor frequencies on the AMD site:
http://139.95.253.214/SRVS/CGI-BIN/...00000000175480378,K=1368,Sxi=4,Case=obj(1224)

Thanks,
David Holcomb

Paul · Sep 14, 2004

"David Holcomb" said:
I have the 1004 BIOS running an Athlon 1900+ processor right now. I

haven't tried any overclocking since I've read that until the

Athlon XP 2200 (I think), there was no special heat protection circuitry

on the processors to guarantee that the chips would not fry

themselves.

According to the manual, the motherboard supports "Socket A for AMD

Athlon XP/Athlon/Duron up to 2.8GHz+.

Since AMD normally uses their own processor numbering (e.g. 1900+,

2600+, 3200+), does that mean the motherboard only supports up to

an Athlon XP 2800+ processor, or does it really support up to the real

frequency of 2.8GHz? And if so, does the manual say "+"

because you can overclock it, or does the plus mean something else?

If it supports up to a real 2.8GHz, then I assume it can take almost any

AthlonXP processor available today (with a 333Mhz FSB),

since the fastest one I've seen with matching FSB speed is the Athlon XP 3000+ (operating at 2.167GHz)

Ahh, nevermind, I just found there is a link on the ASUS web site which

actually tells me specifically which processors currently

released are supported by my motherboard!

http://www2.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/1,,30_182_869_4348^7923,00.html?1091063312

Here is the info for the A7V333-X motherboard:
http://www2.amd.com/us-en/recmobo/DetailHandler/1,,,00.html?queryID=68047

I also found a nice chart with all the real processor frequencies on the AMD site:
http://139.95.253.214/SRVS/CGI-BIN/...00000000175480378,K=1368,Sxi=4,Case=obj(1224)

Thanks,
David Holcomb

It looks like FSB333 support is there with rev 2.01 motherboard.
Check the rev number on the motherboard, to see what is officially supported.
http://www.asus.com.tw/support/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx

As for overheat protection, one Asus scheme uses the thermal diode on the
processor, and an eight pin monitoring chip, to detect processor overheat.
Since the temp can shoot up so fast on the processor die, the on-die
diode is the best you can do in terms of measuring the temperature. The
eight pin monitoring chip doesn't require software or a BIOS function to
shutdown.

There was a transition period, from motherboards with no thermal protection,
then maybe a motherboard or two were made with temperature monitoring that
required processor intervention, and finally processor independent methods
were developed. Even today, not all Asus boards use the same method for
solving this problem (i.e. they don't all use an eight pin chip specifically
designed to detect overheat).

Paul