Athlon XP upgrade - best choices? which to avoid?

[shortnugly]

Upgrading an Athlon XP CPU, I have:

A7N8X-E REV 2.xx

(current) 1.4 Athlon XP

1 stick of Corsair CMX512 PC3200

I'll be buying another 512 stick of the same XMS to total 1 Gig.


I'll be moderately overclocking.

budget is about $100 - 150.

which ones to consider, which ones to avoid?

Tony

 

[BlueWeasel]

$150 for the CPU and MB upgrade? You could easily pick up a S939 and good overclocking chip (A64 or 939 Sempron) and still keep it under $150.

Are you planning on keeping your current PSU and AGP card?

 

[shortnugly]

Just upgrading the CPU. I'll probably be building another rig this spring.

I have a Radeon 9500 128mb card and a 350 watt PSU which is staying.

Just wanna tune up the pc with a processor and some more memory.

I keep the system pretty lean and clean.

 

[Stumps]

it really depends on how high you want to go...a Barton core AXP is a pretty decent choice, I have a AXP 3000+ server running at 2.333ghz and it runs pretty sweet, although some of the mobile T-bred cpu's are supposably good for 2.4ghz+

 

[BlueWeasel]

Originally posted by: shortnugly

Just upgrading the CPU. I'll probably be building another rig this spring.

I have a Radeon 9500 128mb card and a 350 watt PSU which is staying.

Just wanna tune up the pc with a processor and some more memory.

I keep the system pretty lean and clean.

Well, I'd recommend a 939 board with a cheap A64 or Sempron, but finding a 939 with an AGP port might be hard to find. The ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 is a good choice as it has both AGP and PCIe, and overclocks nicely.

Another option is a S754 system. You could pick up a good 754 board and Sempron for $100 that should hit 2.5Ghz+ fairly easy.

 

[ScrewFace]

Pick up a mobile Athlon XP 2600+. I had gotten mine to 2.5GHz but alot of people got theirs to 2.6 or 2.7GHz.

 

[11427]

Just about any of the Barton cores will do ya. Best bets would likely be 2500+ or 3200+, or one of the mobile 2500+, 2600+, 2800+. With that MB and memory you should be able to run any of these at a 400 FSB and at least 2.2GHz and likely higher

 

[nyker96]

best chice: 939 mb with a decent single core.

 

[o1die]

Get your 939 now (retail boxed with free heatsink) before they're all gone. I have 2, as I don't plan on changing memory for awhile.

 

[sandorski]

ya, unless the ram increase comjes out of the 150 budget, new mobo/cpu as recommended above makes the most sense. if the power supply is of a good quality it shouldn't be an issue.