Can I buy a CPU at a higher speed than the motherboard is designed for?

[Bellweather]

I have an ABIT KT7, and my CPU burned out. Can I buy, let's say, a 1.3 ghz athlon and run it at 1ghz since the specs for the KT7 say it is good with 600-1ghz athlons and durons?

 

[Helznicht]

Yes, as I understand it, the 1.3 athlons are not clock locked, so you could run them however you wanted (no pencil trick needed to unlock).

 

[Desmoquattro]

i don't have a KT133 board but i'm sure those things can support more than that (?)...i could've sworn someone told me he could run it up to 1.6Ghz (???)...if not 1.6Ghz then i'm sure it can't be just 1GHz...someone correct me if i'm wrong.

 

[Dark4ng3l]

Tjat only means the tested those speeds before the board came out, it will run faster cpu's.

 

[Bellweather]

Thank you.

 

[Boonesmi]

the abit kt7 can actually run a 1.3ghz cpu at 1.3ghz

 

[MallowJr]

I'm in the same boat, the abit kt7 will support 200 FSB processors (not the new -C- type 266 FSB Tbirds). So, you are able to get the highest right now (1.4 200FSB) processor, though personally I'd buy something very cheap (1.0 gz...never thought there'd be a time I'd say that's cheap) and wait for the quicker/cooler AMD palamino processors to drop in price and increase in speed (only at 1.2 gz right now, clock to clock faster than tbird) and upgrade at end of year again. The Tbird is going to stop soon and Palamino will take over....

 

[Whitedog]

Most motherboards will give you a CPU range based on the current BIOS support. As newer CPU's come out, new bios's are Written to support them.

If you're not sure if your board will run the CPU, just go to the Mobo manufacture webpage support and read what bios version you have supports, and flash to the latest bios if necessary.

I have an old Dell computer that came with dual p2400's when the p2400's first came out. I upgraded the bios now and it will support P3850's. Pretty cool.

If the mobo manufacturer webpage doesn't supply you with this kind of data, buy a different brand mobo next time

 

[Whitedog]

And BTW, I know ABIT's website has complete descriptions on their bios files.