Is upgrading from 1.4 to 2000+ worth it ??

[Sully]

I have a Epox EP-8KTA motherboard with a 1.4 CPU now. Is it worth it to upgrade to a Athlon XP 2000+?
Will I see a big difference? I am planning to get a geforce 4 and i would like great performace in games.

Thanks

 

[AndyHui]

At this stage?

Not really. Your processor is already very fast.

While you will see a difference in performance, the money spent is probably not worth the increase.

You are probably better off waiting for something faster, such as a Thoroughbred based processor, as that will give ou overclocking headroom.

 

[Egrimm]

You would see a performance increase, but as Andy said it wouldn't be that much that it'll be worth it.

You can feel the difference in speed in actual use, I can feel a small difference between running my 1600+ at stock speed (1.4Ghz) and at 1600Mhz, at 1600 it reacts a bit faster. But it wouldnt be worth buying a new cpu just to get such a little increase.

Have you oc'ed your 1400? If it's a T-Bird you can both change the multiplier and fsb. No matter what it should be good for at least 1.533Ghz, more if you've got good cooling.

 

[Mitzi]

I agree with what Andy said! Wait for another couple of months before you upgrade.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Try to find someone to sell your chip to for a decent price. If you sell your chip then you can upgrade much more guilt-free ;-)

 

[rogue1979]

1400MHz Thunderbird cpu speed is very fast. I agree with the others, while the XP is even faster, it isn't really worth the money right now. You wouldn't notice a huge difference, however if you wait for the Thoroughbred and overclock that to 2GHz + that would give you a pretty big boost. If you are running a stock 1.4GHz you probably have AYJHA stepping, which means you should be able to overclock to 1500-1550MHz provided you have good cooling.

 

[IQJUMPuw]

Hey I did the same thing!

I had Athlon T-Bird 1.4GHz and got an XP 2000+. I think it was worth the upgrade, because I can clearly see the performance boost. My T-Bird was holding down my GeForce3 anyways. I sold my T-Bird 1.4GHz for $90 cash and got XP 2000+ for $250. I love the number too. ^_^; XP 2000+ moo hahaha

 

[Siddhartha]

What applications do you use on your system?
I went from a 1.33 gHz T-bird to a XP1900+ and yes the XP is faster. If you can wait I recommend that you holdout for the next generation chip to come out.

 

[Duvie]

In the apllications I use (ie, cadd, divx encoding) I have noticed major performance increases in all my athlon upgrades

750(200fsb)-1100(200fsb)-1400(266fsb)....

I would think the same holds true for 2000+....


However I wouldn't recommend the highest .18 micron chip as it is likely to run too hot. wait for the thoroughbred and .13 micron process to kick in...Likely debut at 1800 true mhz and a 2200+ rating or so...

I was in same predicament when looking at upgradng about 3 weeks ago...2000+ was still 260 w/o hsf and I wanted to oc a bit...2000+ has no real ceiling for this as it seems to be hitting its life cycle...2200+ speeds is a crap shoot and likley not reality with air cooling...

So for damn near same cost I bought a 1.8a p4 and clocked it to 2.4ghz right now with a 533fsb...got an sis645 mobo with full pc2700 support (seems to be ready for northwood b chips as well) running memory at 2525 (rdram like scores), about 500+ higher then my sis735 mobo with fsb overclocked to 142.7 there....

I feel ceratin unless I got to 2200+ speeds with the xp this chip would still outperform it...This IMO and is based on several reviews...

 

[sparky59]

according to the specs on your mother bd. the xp 2000 + will not run on it.
for one you need a 133 mhz bus speed .
you would be better off speed wise to get a new mb with upgrade room and a lower speed xp. DDR would be nice
so a new setup would be in order to be more economical or wait the for a couple of month and get a kt400 bd and maybe the
the newer cooler athlons.

 

[jiffylube1024]

I belive it was either Anandtech or THG that appropriately said about the XP 2000+ --> AMD Athlon XP 2000+: making 66MHz seem like so much more! But yeah 2000 is a great number (and its really faster than a P4 2 GHz anyway).