Upgrading Processor

Cheese Head · Sat 22 May, 2004 00.57

I have quite a low speed processor, it's only 50MHz above the Minimum Requirements, but it still is a bit slow. It all works fine atm, but I can't help but think that there's a better processor that would be better to use for XP. I also find certain games don't work because the processor is too small. My TV Card won't work in this computer either because it requires quite a bit higher than 350MHz.

Anyway, is there a way for me to upgrade my processor without having to upgrade my motherboard? A friend of mine says it will require a new motherboard, but I want a second opinion!

XP Minimum Processor Requirements:

PC with 300 megahertz or higher processor clock speed recommended; 233 MHz minimum required (single or dual processor system);* Intel Pentium/Celeron family, or AMD K6/Athlon/Duron family, or compatible processor recommended

cwathen · Sat 22 May, 2004 01.34

You don't say what type of processor you have which rather restricts anyone's ability to advise you on upgrade paths, but from quoting a clock speed of 350Mhz, I'm assuming you have either a Pentium II or an AMD K6-2 chip (or some other SS7 chip like a Cyrix M-II)

The Pentium II was a slot 1 chip, now obsolete. The AMD was a socket 7 chip, also now obsolete.

Whilst there were upgrade options available to you in the past (550Mhz AMD K6-III's were available, whilst the Pentium II maxed out at 450Mhz) but of course neither of these lines are manufactured or supported any more and aren't on general sale.

If you can get hold of a Pentium II or AMD K6-2/3 to fit your motherboard from somewhere, you do have an upgrade path available (although you'd still be pretty much behind the times) but unless you have a source in mind you probably won't be able to find one.

If you need to change to a different processor technology, you will need a new motherboard to put it in - and quite possibly new memory too. The days when upgrading the CPU was just a matter of unplugging the old one and plugging the new one in, or clipping an 'overdrive' processor onto your existing chip are sadly long gone.

Neil Jones · Sat 22 May, 2004 10.25

Cheese Head wrote:I have quite a low speed processor, it's only 50MHz above the Minimum Requirements, but it still is a bit slow. It all works fine atm, but I can't help but think that there's a better processor that would be better to use for XP. I also find certain games don't work because the processor is too small. My TV Card won't work in this computer either because it requires quite a bit higher than 350MHz.

Anyway, is there a way for me to upgrade my processor without having to upgrade my motherboard? A friend of mine says it will require a new motherboard, but I want a second opinion!

More information needed really, such as the motherboard name, processor name and whether its an OEM machine or a self-built machine. An OEM machine is one you buy from a PC manufacturer - Dell, IBM, Time, Tiny, etc - and will almost have some feature that renders the entire thing useless when you try to upgrade it; At least one manufacturer for example used to use a power supply unit and connectors that made usage of a standard one impossible when the original blew.

Various utilities can be used to find out the motherboard name and motherboard manufacturer (but not usually the PC manufacturer which is usually plastered all over the front bezel) and from there it's a case of visiting the appropriate site, finding your MB on there and looking at what processors it will support maximum. Grab SISSoftware, from http://www.sisoftware.net/ which should be able to tell you about your motherboard.

Some MBs of this day, assuming a Pentium II, were able to support a low end Pentium III but modern day processors such as Pentium IV and AMD Athlon XPs and Athlon 64s are definitely out of the question.

Personally speaking, if you can support a Pentium III then, at current eBay prices, I think you'd be better off simply upgrading the entire system. I mean a 600Mhz Slot 1 Pentium III is currently going at £26 with three hours to go; you can buy an entire new retail motherboard for that, in particular http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/spec ... ?ASR-K7S8X which is £28 and it'll wipe the floor with your current setup. Once you add in video (decent ones from £50 they are cheaper), processor (retail box, £60, XP2500) and probably a new case with PSU(£30), about £150 in all. Or you can pay c.£20 extra for a MB with onboard video.

Joe Public · Sat 22 May, 2004 13.59

I dont know if this is of any use but I tried to upgrade my processer to the "next one up" and was told that it would be a waste of time cos I would have to upgrade mt mother board.

Chris · Sat 22 May, 2004 17.43

Is an AMD better than a P4 processor in terms of performance and reliability? I hear that P4's are better at reliability because they step down in speed when they get too hot rather than AMD's which steam ahead and can burn out (!)

I'm going to be buying a new system soon and I want to get the best performance and value out of it, but I do not wish to have anything inferior at the same time.

And also what are the advantages of self-building your system to buying an off the shelf one or getting the local shop to build it for you?

Thing is I do not really want any of the pre-built stuff that they sell in PC World, Time etc because so much crap comes with the system that I don't want. I don't want to have a recovery system, I don't want any of the pre-installed apps and I don't want XP Home - XP Professional or would like to keep my copy of 2000. I don't want a 15" TFT that can only display a tiny 1024x768 either!

Neil Jones · Sat 22 May, 2004 22.21

Chris wrote:Is an AMD better than a P4 processor in terms of performance and reliability? I hear that P4's are better at reliability because they step down in speed when they get too hot rather than AMD's which steam ahead and can burn out (!)

AMD's are cheaper, sometimes considerably; the XP range number means that performance wise its comparable to a Pentium 4 running at the same clock speed. You get a slower clock speed with an AMD, granted, but more bucks for your money.

For example, an AMD XP 2400 only runs at 2Ghz in terms of its clock speed but in terms of its average performance, it's comparable to a Pentium 4 processor at a clock speed of 2.4Ghz all other things being equal.

P4s may be faster but they also cost more. I mean a Northwood P4 3.2Ghz processor retails at just under £200 on Novatech. Its AMD alternative, the XP 3200 goes for £134. The AMD might only run at 2.16Ghz clock speed wise but its comparable performance wise to the equivalent P4 processor. The new generation of Athlon 64's are IMO far too expensive at this time.

I'm going to be buying a new system soon and I want to get the best performance and value out of it, but I do not wish to have anything inferior at the same time.

And also what are the advantages of self-building your system to buying an off the shelf one or getting the local shop to build it for you?

Well if you self build you can get what you want at the price you want, more or less. Plus you know what all the bits are, you know what their capabilities are and what not. Plus they will all be standard components inside a standard PC case that you can upgrade and/or replace over time. Not always the case with something you buy off the shelf.

Thing is I do not really want any of the pre-built stuff that they sell in PC World, Time etc because so much crap comes with the system that I don't want. I don't want to have a recovery system, I don't want any of the pre-installed apps and I don't want XP Home - XP Professional or would like to keep my copy of 2000. I don't want a 15" TFT that can only display a tiny 1024x768 either!

Well most off the shelf ones will usually supply XP Home because those sorts of PCs are aimed there, at the home market. Which is also why they supply recovery CDs, stacks of pre-installed software and a monitor which may or may not be much cop. It's a complete system you will understand but usually with something somewhere that renders it almost impossible to upgrade decently later on. Just go out of their way to make life as easy as possible for Joe Public but hard as hell for five years down the line.

Joe Public wrote:I dont know if this is of any use but I tried to upgrade my processer to the "next one up" and was told that it would be a waste of time cos I would have to upgrade mt mother board.

Depends how you define "the next one up". I mean if you want to upgrade to, say, a PII 350 from a PII 333, there wouldn't be any point for sake of an extra 17Mhz. However, MB permitting, if you was to upgrade from, say, a PII 266 to a PIII 550Mhz then that would be more worth your while as it would be twice as fast and you'd notice it more. The general rule is, if you have the lowest supported processon on your board, you can usually (but not always) upgrade it to one that is twice the speed of the slowest supported processor.

cwathen · Tue 25 May, 2004 03.55

And also what are the advantages of self-building your system to buying an off the shelf one or getting the local shop to build it for you?

There used to be quite a significant cost saving to be made, back in 1999 I built a system which cost about £500 in parts but would have been twice as much to buy the same spec in a shop. That advantage has admittedly largely gone now, with the advent of the £399 PC from Tescos and the general amount of price reduction that has gone on. Indeed you may end up paying more by self building in some cases.

But the advantage of being able to build somethiing exactly to your spec, which exactly fulfills your requirements rather than having to find a 'best fit' option from a prebuilt range (and of course, to get away from the corners which are frequently cut by OEMs, like using shared memory architecture onboard graphics, and onboard AC97 audio codecs rather than real sound cards), and of course to not have it cluttered with the half of ton of crap which OEMs like to install on their systems is still there.

Thing is I do not really want any of the pre-built stuff that they sell in PC World, Time etc because so much crap comes with the system that I don't want. I don't want to have a recovery system, I don't want any of the pre-installed apps and I don't want XP Home - XP Professional or would like to keep my copy of 2000. I don't want a 15" TFT that can only display a tiny 1024x768 either!

You've just identified the advantages yourself. The current vogue is as you say to have a flat panel TFT display rather than a nasty old fashioned CRT monitor - but as you say you will almost always get an el-cheapo 15" jobby when for the same money you could buy yourself a nice 19" CRT which would perhaps be more suitable for your needs. I personally don't like flat panel displays anyway. They might look modern and take up less space, but the picture you get from a CRT is much warmer and brighter, and of course doesn't suffer from having a restricted viewing angle, a limited pallete, or the inability to scale to different resolutions. TFT is a terrific technology for laptops, and useful for desktops in certain scenarios where space is at a premium, but I really don't believe in the virtual replacement of CRTs with TFT panels which OEMs are trying to achieve. It's interesting to note that professional photographers who touch up photos on a PC won't touch a flat panel display with a bargepole - they will always use a traditional CRT monitor.

Can I ask though, what feature of XP do you need that isn't in the home edition? I got XP Home on my laptop, and whilst I won't deny that some people need the added functionality of professional, I've yet to identify anything which I need which can be done in XP Home. I do admittedly run Windows 2000 professional on my desktop machine, but that's only because there is no corresponding home version of Windows 2000. No offence to you, but most home users who run XP Professional do so for no other reason than to say that they run Professional rather than Home.

Neil Jones · Tue 25 May, 2004 10.50

cwathen wrote:But the advantage of being able to build somethiing exactly to your spec, which exactly fulfills your requirements rather than having to find a 'best fit' option from a prebuilt range (and of course, to get away from the corners which are frequently cut by OEMs, like using shared memory architecture onboard graphics, and onboard AC97 audio codecs rather than real sound cards), and of course to not have it cluttered with the half of ton of crap which OEMs like to install on their systems is still there.

Two things:

1) Quite a few boards now share their system memory with the onboard graphics board; it's a faraway cry from the days when you could have so much memory and so much video memory on top of it, ie they were separate. The memory is much faster so makes sense to share it with the graphics system. Most boards will go up to 32Mb onboard memory which is taken out of the system memory. Depending on your needs and how much memory you have, it may not make much of a difference to have that chunk taken out.

2) Onboard sound is very good for the most part; there's virtually no difference between onboard and PCI sound so far as the average user is concerned.