PC Upgrades

[lazarus]

My uncle wants me to get him a new CPU, more RAM and a 250GB HDD for his PC.

Since his PC is a little older (Asus A7V266-E) Socket A mobo which takes PC2700(?) *266MHz*, I told him that he could probably get a 2500XP, and get 2x512MB generic PC3200 and a new CPU fan and I could probably OC his system a little too.

Here are my main 4 questions I'm hoping someone knows off the top of their head:

1) Are most 2500XP's unlocked? (So I can OC to a 3200XP)
2) Will a Sempron CPU work in this? (I'm almost 99.9% sure it won't since most older Mobo's required a bios upgrade)
3) What is the HDD limit on the Mobo?
4) Will PC3200 work fine?


Thanks for any help

[willy]

How fast is his current CPU ?


1) Are most 2500XP's unlocked? (So I can OC to a 3200XP)
Unfortunately, you cannot run XP2500+ on A7V266 at stock speed coz it requires 166MHz FSB (166MHz x 11). Also, you don't exactly need an unlocked XP2500+ to reach 3200+ speed. Just up the FSB from 166MHz to 200MHz and possibly a vcore bump or two and you are done (assuming the CPU is capable). However, this mobo is not a possibility.

The fastest *stock* CPU you can use on this mobo is XP2400 (2GHz real clock, 133MHz x 15). Forget about XP2600+ (Model 8/266MHz) ... It's very hard to find.

http://support.asus.com/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=A7V266-E


2) Will a Sempron CPU work in this? (I'm almost 99.9% sure it won't since most older Mobo's required a bios upgrade)
Same reason as #1. 166MHz FSB required.


3) What is the HDD limit on the Mobo?
It should support IDE HDs of all sizes ... A7V266 series with BIOS 1007 or later will have no problem supporting IDE 48-bit LBA addressing mode, i.e. IDE hard drive larger than 127GB.


4) Will PC3200 work fine?
Chance is good.

[lazarus]

Unfortunately, you cannot run XP2500+ on A7V266 at stock speed coz it requires 166MHz FSB (166MHz x 11). Also, you don't exactly need an unlocked XP2500+ to reach 3200+ speed. Just up the FSB from 166MHz to 200MHz and possibly a vcore bump or two and you are done (assuming the CPU is capable). However, this mobo is not a possibility.

The fastest *stock* CPU you can use on this mobo is XP2400 (2GHz real clock, 133MHz x 15).


Same reason as #1. 166MHz FSB required.


It should be ok with uptodate BIOS. I need to double-check.


Chance is good.

Whoa, you're quick!

I saw they had an FAQ on Asus, and I found that the HDD should be ok. :)

"A7V266 series with BIOS 1007 or later will have no problem supporting IDE 48-bit LBA addressing mode, i.e. IDE hard drive larger than 127GB.

http://www.asus.com.tw/support/download/item.aspx?ModelName=A7V266-E "


For the CPU support, it said that it will go upto Athlon XP 2600+(266FSB)(Model 8)(Thoroughbred) , so if I got the 2500 XP-M, it wouldn't work since the FSB is less than 266?

[willy]

For the CPU support, it said that it will go upto Athlon XP 2600+(266FSB)(Model 8)(Thoroughbred) , so if I got the 2500 XP-M, it wouldn't work since the FSB is less than 266?
There is a good chance XP-M 2500+ will work fine on A7V266-E coz XP-M 2500+ is a native 266Mhz-FSB CPU. However, most likely it will 'only' run at 1.8GHz (133MHz x 14) which is ~ the performance of 2200/2400 ...

Note : XP2500+ and XP-M2500+ have different stock FSBs as well as multipliers.

BTW, how fast is his current CPU ?

[terrybear]

my advice would be look at getting him a low end s939 athlon64 cpu like the 3000+, a low end s939 motherboard like a K8T800 Pro/sub $100 board, 2 512's of the generic samsung DDR 400 & a 200+ Sata hard drive & be doen with it.

Alot of this stuff is on at good prices at ncix right now & there boxing sale I might add. ;)

That is IF his tower & power supply are compatible & can handle it.

[lazarus]

Thanks everyone for the info!

After reading most of the posts and comparing the cost of the hardware, I told him to get a 250GB HDD and said that he would be way better off to buy a mid end s939 mobo, Athlon 64 CPU, PC3200 mem and PCIe video card in the new year when AMD releases the new CPUs which will be compatible w/ DDR2, 3, XDR (or whatever the hell they plan on using). I'm sure that this will drop the price of the older mobo's and CPUs?

That way he will be able to get more bang for his buck. Since he only uses his PC for email, surfing the web he should be fine for another 2 - 6 months.

Edit--



BTW, how fast is his current CPU ?


He has a 1.4GHz Thunderbird(?), 2x256MB some crappy 64MB or 128MB ATI ragefury, now he has a 80GB and 250GB 7200RPM 8MB Cache WD drives (I pulled his "super" (crappy) floppy, his two 6GB Quantum fireballs and his PCI IDE controller card.) that alone spead up his system (also did a new XP install).

[willy]

Thanks everyone for the info!

After reading most of the posts and comparing the cost of the hardware, I told him to get a 250GB HDD and said that he would be way better off to buy a mid end s939 mobo, Athlon 64 CPU, PC3200 mem and PCIe video card in the new year when AMD releases the new CPUs which will be compatible w/ DDR2, 3, XDR (or whatever the hell they plan on using). I'm sure that this will drop the price of the older mobo's and CPUs?

That way he will be able to get more bang for his buck. Since he only uses his PC for email, surfing the web he should be fine for another 2 - 6 months.

Edit--




He has a 1.4GHz Thunderbird(?), 2x256MB some crappy 64MB or 128MB ATI ragefury, now he has a 80GB and 250GB 7200RPM 8MB Cache WD drives (I pulled his "super" (crappy) floppy, his two 6GB Quantum fireballs and his PCI IDE controller card.) that alone spead up his system (also did a new XP install).
Maybe it's just me .... For web-surfing and possibly some office tasks, I think his current TB 1.4GHz + 512MB should be more than sufficient. I personally think that he won't experience any signficant performance gain from a A64+PC3200+PCIe upgrade compared to the amount of $$$ he needs to spend.

For the better bang of his bucks, I would say XP2400+ (~ 50% CPU clock speed jump) would be the cheapest and easiest upgrade for him. It's likely the current HSF will work fine too coz TB 1.4GHz is THE hottest AMD socket-A CPU. If it can cool a TB 1.4, it can cool XP2400+. If he can unload the TB 1.4, the upgrade cost is minimal.