FCPGA Vs. FCPGA2 Socket 370

[TechieZer0]

I am thinking of upgrading my pIII-700 FCPGA socket 370 chip, but I notice some that are FCPGA2.

What is FCPGA2? Can I use a FCPGA2?

Thank You

 

[nemo160]

i'm pretty sure fcpga2's are the .13 micron tualatin core p3's and celerons
unfortunately you can't run them on older socket 370 boards because the use finer voltage steps (.025 vs. .05 i believe)
so i'm pretty sure you'd have to replace the mobo too
the tualatins do perform great and tend to have at least a little bit of ocing head room, but for most people a p4 or athlon or duron make more sense now as intel is holding up the prices of tualatins
what's your upgrade budget and what do you use your system for?

 

[TechieZer0]

what's your upgrade budget and what do you use your system for?

It's my 2nd PC that has an ASUS P3V4X Mobo using a p3-700 oc'ed to 933 cooled w/ a 52 watt peltier and an Alpha h/s. I have had to steadily up the voltage twice to 1.75V over the last several months and I fear electromigration is going to kill it since it has been running this way for almost 2 years.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Originally posted by: nemo160
i'm pretty sure fcpga2's are the .13 micron tualatin core p3's and celerons
unfortunately you can't run them on older socket 370 boards because the use finer voltage steps (.025 vs. .05 i believe)
so i'm pretty sure you'd have to replace the mobo too
the tualatins do perform great and tend to have at least a little bit of ocing head room, but for most people a p4 or athlon or duron make more sense now as intel is holding up the prices of tualatins
what's your upgrade budget and what do you use your system for?

You are correct - FCPGA2 is the name given to Tualatin core P3's and Celeron's. You cannot run them on Socket 370 motherboards without modding the CPU (which most users, myself included, would not want to do). However, there are both FCPGA-->FCPGA2 adaptors and Slot 1 (like TechieZer0's P3V4X) to FCPGA2 slotkets. BUT - the companies that make these usually way overcharge you and it's not worth it.

With that said, you'd probably be better off getting a new CPU/mobo. The best bet for you would probably be to get a Tualatin-capable motherboard and a nice, cheap overclocking FCPGA2 CPU, like an ASUS TUSL2 and a Celeron 1.0A. This way you can move all of your RAM to the new machine (assuming you have 512MB or less; the intel i815e chipset doesn't support more than 512MB, whereas yours supports 2 GB). Otherwise you can upgrade to a new DDR platform; either an Athlon XP or P4.

 

[nemo160]

you could also go with an ecs k7s5a mobo ($50), a duron1.2 (about$50)or even an xp 1600+, and an antec 300w (around $30)
probably cheaper than a tualatin based system
the ecs k7s5a would allow you to keep your current ram and upgrade to ddr at a later time, you can use 2 slots sdr or 2 slots ddr
a duron 1.0 would probably be more likely to make the jump to 133 mhz fsb at 1.33 and be even a bit cheaper still
the ecs board is not big on ocing...but the bump from 1.0 to 1.3 should be fairly easy given decent cooling
a p3 1.2 is $120 by itself (pricewatch), so this strikes me as a more viable upgrade for a secondary machine
i have built 2 duron systems on the k7s5a, a 1.0 and 1.2, and both turned out rock solid stable, quick and highly responsive
a good psu is mandatory though..this board is a bit picky, but a brand name (antec/enermax..etc) 300w psu should do the job
so for 130 you can have a nice litle combo with new psu and keep your ram or you can drop 120 on just the cpu

 

[TechieZer0]

Thank you all for your input especially the hardware suggestions. I had to bring it up to 1.8 volts now and it seems to be running ok. This is going to turn in to an interesting science experiment until it all dies, then I will check out everyone's suggestions.

Thank you all again.

Patrick