How Risky is it?

[DietDrThunder]

I'm thinking about putting an Athlon XP 2400 in my Epox 8K7a Rev. 1.0 motherboard. Epox says "Your motherboard is certified to support up to an XP 1900". How risky is it to the processor or motherboard to try a faster non-certified processor in this motherboard?

 

[rogue1979]

How about getting a 1700+ 1.5v t-bred "B" for around $60? Pop two of the L3 bridges for link a 15X multiplier. Using the 9-volt battery method makes it pretty easy. Use your fsb to overclock the cpu from 2000-2300MHz at a relatively low core voltage. A little extra work, but in my opinion much less of a risk because these cpu's are cheap. I have one that is running 2337MHz at 1.71v.

 

[DietDrThunder]

The only problem with overclocking is that I do a lot of video editing / compression and the two don't mix very well.

 

[rogue1979]

Overclocking can very well be associated with instability. This is not because overclocking unstable. This is because alot of people believe that overclocking is pushing your cpu/video card/memory for the maximum benchmark. If your system finishes the benchmark and can run the desktop and a few games, that's good enough. Other people take it a little further and if you loop 3Dmark or pass Prime95 overnight then everything is fine. In my opinion, this isn't good enough. I pass that level and can still find instability. Video compression/editing/encoding is a good example. I find that surfing, downloading songs, burning CD's, playing online games, running a media player, and running Prime95 simultaneously as well as a few other things can bring out glitches even if 3Dmark, MemTest, and Prime95 check out OK.

The point is overclocking can be 100% stable and safe if you don't push it too far, but that can take some work to be truly stable.
For me it is worth it, but some people just don't like to tweak or test that much.

 

[Jeff7181]

If you want to do video encoding get a P4... they're superior to Athlon XP's in media encoding any way you look at it.

 

[Budman]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
If you want to do video encoding get a P4... they're superior to Athlon XP's in media encoding any way you look at it.

While I agree with that statement The guy didnt ask for a P4 he asked for an XP to use in his current motherboard;please dont let this thread turn into a amd vs intel war. :disgust:



Cepak,this was in your motherboard's max in the manual because at the time of printing it 1900 was probably the fastest available,go update your bios & I am pretty sure your mobo will handle the new cpu just fine.

As long as you have a good power supply to feed the new chip I dont think you'll have any problems, Good luck.

 

[Jeff7181]

Blah blah blah... don't be so hyper sensative... I use AMD and will always use AMD unless I start doing some serious video encoding...

 

[DietDrThunder]

If I were still a young single guy with no kids I'd probably spend the money and buy a new P4 system. Unfortunately that's not the case so I have to make due with a limited budget.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: Cepak
If I were still a young single guy with no kids I'd probably spend the money and buy a new P4 system. Unfortunately that's not the case so I have to make due with a limited budget.

You may consider purchasing a "buttload" of RAM then... more RAM always helps with things like that.

 

[DietDrThunder]

I've got 512MB of DDR 2100. When I watch the Symantec monitoring software while doing mpeg compression the CPU is usually at 100% for 2.5 to 3.5 hours, the memory usually tops out around 62%.

 

[EeyoreX]

Since the Epox website was pretty useless as far as me checking out max CPU specs of the board, I would say the only real risk is that the computer will not POST. I could be wrong however, so if you try it on my advice and something happens, don't blame me.

\Dan