CPU upgrade, how high can I go?

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Sam

I have a 400mhz PII and I want to upgrade, without replacing the
motherboard. How fast can I go? I believe it is a Slot 1 motherboard.

Thanks in advance.

Sam
 
Sam said:
I have a 400mhz PII and I want to upgrade, without replacing the
motherboard. How fast can I go? I believe it is a Slot 1 motherboard.
Click to expand...

It certainly is a slot-1 mobo. Really difficult to say without knowing more
about your board. I'd say it's a BX chipset probably. It depends on what
support the manufacturer supplied for it in the way of BIOS updates.

It might top out at a PII450, more likely, with a BIOS update it will take a
PIII Katmai up to 600Mhz. If you're really lucky it may take a coppermine
PIII and may go as high as 1Ghz.

Practiaclly speaking though, you aren't going to 'see' much speed increase
without at least doubling the CPU speed and prices for PIII 800s and above
are still high (second-hand only) as they are a popular upgrade. I've seen
people pay more for one of those than for a new Duron 1.3Ghz or low-end
Athlon.

Unless you're sure your mobo can take a coppermine CPU and you can get an
800Mhz+ Slot 1 PIII cheaply (Good luck!) I'd say forget trying to upgrade
using your existing mobo and get a cheap socket A mobo that will re-use your
existing PC100 SD-RAM and a Duron CPU. Probably will only cost you a little
more than a fast PIII.

(BTW, I've been down this route myself, started with a PII-350, went to a
PIII-500 Katmai and then to a PIII-600 coppermine which I overclocked to
around 850Mhz. (I was lucky that my mobo supported coppermines, it was a
late-model BX). All-in-all it was a good learning curve but ultimately the
machine just wasn't as fast as I'd hoped, certainly not twice as fast as the
PII-350.)
 
I have a 400mhz PII and I want to upgrade, without replacing the
motherboard. How fast can I go? I believe it is a Slot 1 motherboard.

Thanks in advance.

Sam
Click to expand...

As ~misfit` mentioned, it'll depend on the specific motherboard make,
model, perhaps revision, and possibly your ability to find a
supportive BIOS update. The goal "might" be a Coppermine Celeron
1.1GHz, it was typically the most cost-effective upgrade, but today
it's still going to be a relatively slow machine for the more
demanding uses, but certainly enough for older games,
office/email/general purpose use.

For any worthwhile speed increase you'd also need a
coppermine-compatible slotket adapter, making what performance
increase you'd see, less bang for the buck than just replacing the
motherboard too. This old motherboard probably doesn't support
high-density memory and likely not IDE interfaces faster than ATA33,
nor large hard drive support or AGP 4X video... It would make more
sense to just replace the motherboard unless you already happened to
have a slotket adapter and CPU lying around.


Dave
 
I really appreciate all the information. I will have to think about this,
and I'll get back to you with the outcome.

Thanks again!!

Sam
 
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