Athlon XP or Athlon Thunderbird
I am going to be upgrading this month. What processor should I go with? I can get a 1. 4Ghz Athlon for about $100. How much faster is the XP? Is it worth the price increase? Will Socket A motherboards support the XP?.
I am going to be upgrading this month. What processor should I go with? I can get a 1.4Ghz Athlon for about $100. How much faster is the XP? Is it worth the price increase? Will Socket A motherboards support the XP?
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Well, you could probably pretty easily get at 1.4 TBird to 1.7 without much hassle. I haven't seen any reviews/comparisons between the new Palomino Athlons and the old TBird Athlons, so I can't make a suggestion. I do know that AMD said the newer chips will be fully back-wards compatible with SokA mobos, but they may require a new BIOS.
-bZj
-bZj
Don't forget that the KT133 has that little problem where it can't run the CPU's frontside bus at 133MHz. You can cut and/or connect different bridges and make it work, but if I'm that desperate, I'll buy a new board. The RAM can run like that just fine, but not the FSB. KT133A and up should run it just fine.
I'm in the dark about the XP, however, a better comparison would be to the Athlon MP. I'm not sure if it runs or is supported in SMP. My guess is that it will work in SMP, but not necessarily supported. AMD has has SMP capable chips since the K-5, but no chipsets appeared to support it.
I guess the only other thing I can think of is that it won't take your motherboard along if the heatsink comes off.
I'm in the dark about the XP, however, a better comparison would be to the Athlon MP. I'm not sure if it runs or is supported in SMP. My guess is that it will work in SMP, but not necessarily supported. AMD has has SMP capable chips since the K-5, but no chipsets appeared to support it.
I guess the only other thing I can think of is that it won't take your motherboard along if the heatsink comes off.
Yeah, but AMD and Tyan do not support them. AthlonMP's are the only ones supported. That hasn't stopped a lot of people from running ones other than the MP's, and they seem to run just fine.
Several sites have run dual T-Birds. The new Durons (Morgan) can run in SMP, again no support.
Several sites have run dual T-Birds. The new Durons (Morgan) can run in SMP, again no support.
I cant beleve you can say that a 1.4 can hit 1.7 'without much hassle', you would be lucky to hit 1.6 with a little bit of hassle. SMP is basically running 2 processors which i doubt you will be conserned with
Anyway, short answer is you may as well wait until the XP is released. But it also depends on what motherboard you have. As brian said some motherboards (older ones) cant run at 133(266)bus so wont be able to run the XP. Also if you have a KT133A board like the Abit KT7A for example, it has some problems.
Also the XP will finally support SSE, but sadly it seems like only the new motherboards designed for the XP will be able to use it, unless a bios update helps the older ones to do it
Anyway, short answer is you may as well wait until the XP is released. But it also depends on what motherboard you have. As brian said some motherboards (older ones) cant run at 133(266)bus so wont be able to run the XP. Also if you have a KT133A board like the Abit KT7A for example, it has some problems.
Also the XP will finally support SSE, but sadly it seems like only the new motherboards designed for the XP will be able to use it, unless a bios update helps the older ones to do it
