Help me Pick my next CPU!

[WarfRat]

Sorry for the Cross-post from Sharkeys Forum, but I think there's a lot of us Abit BH6/Celeron 300A O/C'd to 450 owners who are wondering what to do next. We all want to double our processor speed into the 900MHZ-1GigHz range while keeping our (expensive by todays prices) RAM.
Origional Post follows:

My Specs:
Abit BH6 rev1.0x Moboard
BH6 "SS" Bios (most recent)
Celeron 300A O/c'd to 450 (100mhz x4.5)
One Corsair 128MB SDRAM PC100 CAS2
One Mushkin 128MB Mosel PC100 SDRAM CAS2
(256 MB total)
Hercules 3D Prophet II MX (Geforce2MX)oc'd 200x200 mhz RAM/Core
Diamond Monster Sound MX300 w latest Aureal drivers
IBM 20.5GB Ultra DMA/66 7200rpm Hardrive
IBM 10GB Ultra DMA/66 7200RPM Hardrive
SuperMicro Tower case with 6 extra Fans
One un-installed ComputerNerd Clery Sandwich cooler (I didnt need it)

My goal here is to double my processor speed to 900mhz plus. My good old Celeron has served its time well in my system but its time has come.
I want to wait another year or more to completely upgrade
Motherboard/processor/memory.
I dont play any first person shooter Games, mostly Ultima Online, Baldurs Gate etc. and will sacrifice a little speed for stability.
I do plan to play the UO2 and other 3D online Games due out next year.
Bottom line is Id like to spend $200 or less, am leaning twords a P3 800e and am wondering if the rest of my system can handle running at 133MHZ FSB??

 

[KR]

Although not "officially" supported, theres a good chance that a PIII-800E will work in your BH6 R1.0. There are numerous instances of people using coppermines overclocked in early BH6's. I don't recall the choices of FSB in the Rev1 board but with your Hard Drives and GeForce you shouldn't have any problems with the overclocked PCI and AGP channels.

I was faced with a similar situation and have happily been able to report stable 936MHZ (1.7V) and seemingly stable 992MHZ(1.85V) operation on a BX6R2 with a PIII-800E. My BX6R2 allowed me to stay with a FSB/4 PCI speed so my Maxtor drives aren't keeping me from attaining the 900MHZ+ speeds (old UDMA33 Maxtor drives do not like overclocked PCI/IDE channels at all!). The mild overclock to 936MHZ has allowed me to keep everything else unchanged in the system, absolutely stable - and yes, for under $200.

If 112, 117 and 124 MHZ FSB are choices on your BH6 you'll probably be able to get to 896, 936 and possibly 992MHZ if the other components tolerate the overclock. Even without overclocking you're looking at 800MHZ + turbo for 822MHZ - and about double your current processing power with the added performance from the added cache.