CPU swap

Elmo89m

Elmo89m

New member
I have a 1900 AMD athlon processor unit and was wondering if i would be able to buy a new cpu (like a pentium 4) and throw that in and go on my way? would this work?
 
What you need to do is find out what motherboard you have, and find out from the manufacturers website what CPUs are compatible with that motherboard. There may or may not be an upgrade that makes sense to do. Often times, adding more memory can give you a good performance boost also. So can a fresh install and optimization of your operating system (Windows). Another thing to check is if your hard drives are up to snuff.
 
well the thing is, I checkoed out my motherboard and it looks exactly the same as the motherboard in the bundle that comes with the cpu i am thinking about getting. Is it the same except for the cpu socket?
 
Yes you have a Socket A and depending on the Buss speed of your Motherboard you can Upgrade the CPU to another Athlon XP or Sempron CPU ,If your Motherboard has a 333mhz FSB (166 X 2) You can upgrade the CPU to a Athlon XP 3000+ Max.....

If you want to Upgrade to a different Type of CPU than one that Runs on a Socket A you will have to upgrade your Motherboard also.....

Cheers
 
Find out what motherboard you have, there should be a model number written on it somewhere, and look it up to see what CPUs are compatible.

With some luck there might be a BIOS upgrade to support newer CPUs like the sempron.

You should at the very least be able to upgrade to any athlon CPU with a 266 FSB.

The highest from memory was a XP2600+

Back in the socket 7 and socket 370/slot 1 days AMD and Intel CPUs would work in the same motherboards but they now work on different chipsets with different sockets.
 
motherboards are pretty cheap right now,especially if you buy in a combo. you might want to look into just pickign up a cpu and motherboard combo off ebay
 
Elmo89m said:
I have a 1900 AMD athlon processor unit and was wondering if i would be able to buy a new cpu (like a pentium 4) and throw that in and go on my way? would this work?
Click to expand...

No... no... no!!!

You need to buy a new motherboard first, THEN get the processor. If I were you, save yourself the trouble and just pay Best Buy to put some stuff in for you...
 
yeah u definately cant simply upgrade the cpu unless its another socket A CPU. and honestly, since they dont manufacture socket a processors anymore, 1. its gonna be hard to find one and 2. its gonna be more expensive than simply upgrading ur mobo/cpu to something newer, in most cases (its kinda like a delicacy nowadays -_-).

i would simply recommend upgrading ur mobo/cpu and setting it up. it'll be much faster than any of the socket a chipsets/cpus and like i stated earlier, probably cheaper. beware of the frys cpu/mobo combos though, they'll give u a really nice cpu then a POS motherboard. go check out newegg for they got a lot of good/affordable motherboards and u can get a cpu to go with it (if u want a cheap solution upgrade, i would say biostar mobo w/ a sempron 64bit processor, if u want something thats definately gonna be BETTER, biostar mobo w/ a athlon 64bit processor, maybe even a dual-core).

good mobo companies r asus, dfi, biostar, msi, and a few others. those r my main suggestions though.

and as far as setting it up urself, its really not that hard. just read the manual and be patient. dont force anything and make sure if u have any questions or r confused, u google the answer before u try doing something u dont know will work. theres thousands of guides out there on how to build ur own computer that can be helpful to u. even books at ur local borders r out there (ive actually browsed through some of them before -_-). just like i said, beware of those mobo/cpu combos, theyre usually kinda tricky especially for someone who doesnt know much about computer hardware.
 
Certain Athlon XP's had the slower 133Mhz bus speed (which doubles to 266) and a smallish 256KB L2 cache. The fastest Socket A chip you could get will need a speed of 166Mhz (333) set by the motherboard - so you'll need to be sure that yours can do that. You may also need to set the clock multiplier rate yourself and possibly even get a BIOS update for the new chip to be recognised - if the chip was released after the BIOS your motherboard currently has.
If you are not sure about any of this, a new motherboard with a new CPU would be a safer option. You may also need a new PSU too if the motherboard doesn't have the extra power plug newer boards require.

There are some Socket A Semprons that actually are the last type of Athlon XP renamed. These Athlons had the code name "Barton". The Socket A Sempron3000 is a 2Ghz Barton with 333 bus and 512KB L2 cache memory. Be very careful buying Socket A Semprons - check the specs, some are no better than what you already have.
 
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