Can an Gateway Athlon "classic" (K7) Slot A be upgraded?

[Lower]

I got a friend trying to upgrade his Gateway select 650, which currently has an Athlon Classic (K7) Slot A 650MHz CPU in it.
He really wants to go to the max his board can (which supposedly is an 850MHz CPU). The trouble is these K7 Slot A CPU's are a pain to find.
So what is the requirements for running the non classic Slot A Athlon? I've heard there's a good chance that the classic Slot A board, will not be able to run the regular Slot A Tbirds. Anyone have any idea what kind of a chance of compatability there is (read: Is it rare to have a motherboard capable of running them both, or is the inverse a better chance)?

He wants to keep his existing MB, so a MB and CPU upgrade is not an option (I've been pushing this on him all week )

His motherboard is a Gateway OAASN Jabil (Kadoka) AMD Motherboard.

 

[aswedc]

Gateway provides almost no information, but it seems that its a AMD 750 'Irongate', so at least its not one of those Via's that couldn't handle T-Birds. I have a 750 board that is currently running a 1ghz T-Bird, try talking to one of the Gateway techs, they can be annoying but give you the info if you bother them enough.

 

[Richardito]

I would suggest him to first tweak the BIOS with WPCRedit to max out the performance from the memory (CAS 2, 4-way interleave, etc.). Then just buy a used goldfingers device to overclock the CPU (~$10?). You can easily reach 800MHz+ by tweaking the multiplier, voltage and cache divider (speed) with the goldfinger device. For a better upgrade he probably needs a brand new mobo and CPU!

 

[Lower]

Thanks for the info so far.

I have about 12 more hours before I tell my friend what he should order. If anyone else can help with input, please feel free.

 

[sduguid]

I'd say it's simply not worth it for him to upgrade. Anything above 750 mhz begins to see diminishing returns due to the cache slowing down. A goldfinger device would be a reasonable item if he can get one but, ultimately, he'll have to upgrade the MB to see a significant improvement.

 

[JWade]

check out www.compgeeks.com they have some classic athlons as well as slot A t-birds, not too nad priced either. Rahter reasonable shipping too