Technical help required to choose socket A upgrade (Duron-Athlon-Sempron?)

  • Thread starter Thread starter Will
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Will

I have a bit of a slow machine and I want to upgrade the cpu.

At present I use a Duron 700. I'm building up another brand new
PC but in the meantime I want to beef up this old one and give it
a cpu upgrade. However I want to be careful that I work within
the limits of the existing PSU and therefore I don't want an
unecessarily power-hungry cpu.

Can someone kindly check out my thinking below.

By way of background, I am currently running a Syntax mobo with a
Via SV266A chipset (the bus can be set to 100 MHz or 133 MHz).
Memory is 768 MB of 133 MHz SD-RAM (256MB plus 512 MB). The
current 700 Duron's specs say it is a Spitfire 1.60 volts with x7
multiplier on a 100/200 MHz bus with max thermal power of 31 Watts
and max current of 20 Amps.

---------

I figure my options in descending order of preference are as
follows:

(1) Put in a low end Thoroughbred B chip: 1800+ or 2000+.
SPEC: 1533MHz or 1667MHz with 256K cache; FSB is 266 MHz; 1.60V.
This cpu is predicated to run at a max of 60 Watts and 38 Amps.
Approx cost in UK is £35 for 1800+, and £40 for 2000+.

(2) Put in a Duron 1800 chip.
SPEC: 1800 MHz with 64 L2 cache; FSB is 266 MHz; 1.50V.
This cpu is predicated to run at a max of 57 Watts and 38 Amps.
Approx cost in UK is £38.

(3) Put in a Sempron chip: 2200+ or 2400+
SPEC: 1500MHz or 1667MHz with 256K cache; FSB is 333 MHz; 1.60V.
PRESUMABLY I can run Sempron at FSB of only 200 MHz and
therefore get only 80% of its power. IS THIS CORRECT ???
This cpu is predicated to run at a max of 60 Watts and 39 Amps
but will the max be 80% of that because of the slower FSB?
Approx cost in UK is £36 for 2200+, and £46 for 2400+.

Are these options in the right order? Are there any other options
I am overlooking? Are there any important good points and bad
points with these options?

In fact, it is hard for me to get a TBred-B chip except from eBay
(which I do not want to use). So how much of a compromise is
taking option (2) or option (3) above?

Thanks for any info.
 
35w mobile xp chip, if you can set the cpu multiplier on your board by
jumper or in the bios.

Besides that you can have it throttle up and down like a laptop using
crystalcpuid. But only up to the rated multiplier. The jumpers or bios can
exceed that.

It should be good for 2 gigahertz at default voltage which will set at 1.58,
unless maybe the bios are incompatible and go way wrong, so you'd want to be
able to return it.

BTW The bios will autodetect it as very slow, low multiplier. That's the
speed it runs at idle in a laptop.

Actually even at the maximum that crystalcpuid can do, it would be much
faster than your duron, so if your board can't set the multiplier that may
not matter.

For instance a 2200+ 35w mobile XP is the cheapest and can be set to full
speed by the crystalcpuid. That would be 57w at full tilt, so you would need
a decent heatsink, and must have a case fan. (My poor friend ran a 1.75v XP
at 1.9v for years with no case fan and the caps on his board turned brown
with leakage from the heat. His hd has a high-pitch whine too.)

Anyhow, you can have it drop down to half-speed at low load and then it will
more like the Duron in power needs until it throttles up for some load.
--
Ed Light

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Ed Light said:
(My poor friend ran a 1.75v XP at 1.9v for years with no case fan and the
caps on his board turned brown with leakage from the heat. His hd has a
high-pitch whine too.)
Click to expand...
We tried prime95 and it throw a bunch of errors.


--
Ed Light

Smiley :-/
MS Smiley :-\

Send spam to the FTC at
(e-mail address removed)
Thanks, robots.
 
By way of background, I am currently running a Syntax mobo with a
Via SV266A chipset (the bus can be set to 100 MHz or 133 MHz).
Memory is 768 MB of 133 MHz SD-RAM (256MB plus 512 MB). The
current 700 Duron's specs say it is a Spitfire 1.60 volts with x7
multiplier on a 100/200 MHz bus with max thermal power of 31 Watts
and max current of 20 Amps.

---------

I figure my options in descending order of preference are as
follows:

(1) Put in a low end Thoroughbred B chip: 1800+ or 2000+.
SPEC: 1533MHz or 1667MHz with 256K cache; FSB is 266 MHz; 1.60V.
This cpu is predicated to run at a max of 60 Watts and 38 Amps.
Approx cost in UK is £35 for 1800+, and £40 for 2000+.
Click to expand...
Any /266 model will work. Most versatile would probably be a Barton core
XP-M.
(2) Put in a Duron 1800 chip.
SPEC: 1800 MHz with 64 L2 cache; FSB is 266 MHz; 1.50V. This cpu is
predicated to run at a max of 57 Watts and 38 Amps. Approx cost in UK is
£38.
Click to expand...
That'll work too.
(3) Put in a Sempron chip: 2200+ or 2400+ SPEC: 1500MHz or 1667MHz
with 256K cache; FSB is 333 MHz; 1.60V. PRESUMABLY I can run Sempron at
FSB of only 200 MHz and
therefore get only 80% of its power. IS THIS CORRECT ???
Click to expand...

Sempron runs at 166MHz FSB (333FSB) and you can run your board at 133MHz
(266FSB), so you're right about losing power anyway. I wouldn't even
consider a Sempron for this board.
This cpu is predicated to run at a max of 60 Watts and 39 Amps
but will the max be 80% of that because of the slower FSB?
Yes.

Are these options in the right order? Are there any other options I am
overlooking? Are there any important good points and bad points with
these options?

In fact, it is hard for me to get a TBred-B chip except from eBay (which
I do not want to use). So how much of a compromise is taking option (2)
or option (3) above?
Click to expand...
Forget option 3, Socket A Semprons suck (see Sempron in link below).
Option 2 is OK, but a Barton core XP-M would be your best bet if you are
wanting the most cpu power, but even option 2 would give you more than
twice the cpu speed. Closer to 3 times considering the faster FSB and SSE
instructions in the newer Duron. BTW, the Duron 1800 is a Tbred B core
with the 256 K cache set to 64K, but that's another story.
 
I doubt the SV266A has multiplier control. Note that "35W" XP-Ms
are rarely 35W in desktop boards (assuming that they work at
all), because the VIDs are misinterpreted. Normally you have to
manually set the voltage to the correct value.
Click to expand...



I am the OP and unfortunately my mobo does not have multiplier
control.
 
Any /266 model will work. Most versatile would probably be a
Barton core XP-M.
Click to expand...

That'll work too.
Click to expand...


Sempron runs at 166MHz FSB (333FSB) and you can run your board
at 133MHz (266FSB), so you're right about losing power anyway. I
wouldn't even consider a Sempron for this board.

-- snip --

Forget option 3, Socket A Semprons suck (see Sempron in link
below). Option 2 is OK, but a Barton core XP-M would be your
best bet if you are wanting the most cpu power, but even option
2 would give you more than twice the cpu speed. Closer to 3
times considering the faster FSB and SSE instructions in the
newer Duron.
Click to expand...

Wes, I am the OP. Thank you for the info. I am a bit muddled about
the point you make in the last sentence above where you write:
"Closer to 3 times considering the faster FSB and SSE instructions in
the newer Duron".

Did you mean to say "Duron" or did you mean TBred? If you meant
Duron then I do not understand and would ask if you could explain it
a bit more for me.
 
Wes, I am the OP. Thank you for the info. I am a bit muddled about
the point you make in the last sentence above where you write:
"Closer to 3 times considering the faster FSB and SSE instructions in
the newer Duron".

Did you mean to say "Duron" or did you mean TBred? If you meant
Duron then I do not understand and would ask if you could explain it
a bit more for me.
Click to expand...
Yes, I meant Duron. The Duron 1800 is a Tbred B core with all but 64K L2
cache disabled. The reason I said 3 times the performance of an old Duron
700 is because the Duron 1800 runs at 1800MHZ on a 133MHz FSB and also
includes SSE instructions not included in the earlier Duron cores.Even
without the faster FSB and SSE instructions the 1800 is over 2.5 times
faster the the 700.
 
I have a bit of a slow machine and I want to upgrade the cpu.

At present I use a Duron 700
Click to expand...


Hi,

It may be worth finding out if that mobo can support the newer AthlonXP
cpu's. I have a few older nForce mobo's that happily run an XP1700+ and a
XP2000+ but there are both the older Palomino type (1.75v). I also tried an
XP1800+ and an XP2200+ (T-Breds) but I couldn't get the system stable?

Wayne ][
 
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