Need an upgrade recommendation, please.

[Chryseares]

Hi, all. Please excuse the rather "newb" tone of this post. While I don't consider myself an advanced gearhead, I know enough to get by (and get into trouble), but I've been kind of out of the loop for a bit and now that I feel I need to upgrade my CPU, I find myself a little confused.

Currently, this is what I am running:

AMD T-Bird 1GHz
Abit KT7A-RAID (version unknown)
512MB Crucial PC133 (CL2)
Hercules Prophet 4500 (KyroII)
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
WinXP Home

I want to upgrade the CPU to an AMD XP but am unsure which one would work for me, one that shows a noticable performance upgrade over my current T-Bird, but is also relatively inexpensive. Which XP in the lineup would fit the power/price sweet spot and still work with my KT7A m/b? I cannot afford to buy a new (read, DDR) m/b right now, so I'd prefer any suggestions that don't involve replacing it.

Any help would be welcome.

 

[rogue1979]

I would go for the XP 1700 and overclock it a little bit with the fsb. You will have to flash you motherboard to 7N bios version to support the XP. Another cheaper alternative is to go for the Morgan 1.2GHz and overclock it to 1400MHz. Clock for clock a Morgan and a Thunderbird are close to equal.

 

[Chryseares]

Thanks for the suggestion there, Rogue'. I just might go the route you first suggested and get the XP 1700+. What kind of performance gain would I be looking at?

 

[rogue1979]

1533MHz XP power will give a real noticable boost, especially since the Kyro II doesn't have a T&L engine and depends on the cpu. Another suggestion, have you tried overclocking your cpu? If your 1GHz T-bird has AVIA, AXIA or AYJHA stepping you have a very good shot at 1400MHz. The KT7A has all the overclocking options you need, simply unlock the cpu by penciling in the L1 bridges and bump the core voltage up to 1.85v. Invest in a good heatsink and you might not need to spend the money on a new cpu for now. If you are successful in getting the cpu up in speed, maybe a video upgrade could give your system a bigger boost. Geforce 2 Ti and Geforce 4 MX 440 are very cheap now, running about $80 shipped. Or perhaps a Geforce 3 Ti 200 or Radeon 8500 LE for about $115.

We will be happy to help you overclock the cpu, give it a try!

 

[Chryseares]

I think my T-Bird is an AXIA, picked it up from Newegg last year on recommendations from these forums. I'll have to check. As for the video card, I had set aside a small pile of cash for a GeForce4 Ti4200 and, when Newegg had some of the Gainward Golden Sample 128MB ones on sale yesterday, I managed to snag one before they sold out.

 

[rogue1979]

Congratulations on the Geforce 4 Ti 4200, a very good choice! If your cpu is indeed an AXIA stepping, then it is sure to hit 1400MHz. I would skip the cpu upgrade for now, and wait just a few weeks for the .13 Thoroughbred to get here. They will be releasing an 1800 verson which should fall in line price wise with the XP version, and surely overclock higher and run cooler. Don't listen to all these guys give you grief about the smaller die size and increased cooling needs. Some guys in Australia got a hold of a engineering sample and put it in a Vapochill. Like I said from the beginning, it overclocked higher and ran cooler then a comparable XP cpu. Even if your KT7A with the 7N bios doesn't support the thoroughbred, it may just bump XP prices even lower.

 

[Chryseares]

I appreciate your advice, Rogue'. I'll start slowly stepping up the SoftMenu settings and see what I can get out of my AXIA, when I get home from work. It's got a good HSF and I used Thermal Silver. I'll let you know how it works out.

 

[rogue1979]

Make sure your power supply is up to snuff, 1.4GHz 'birds use a lot of juice.

 

[Chryseares]

Hmm... good point. 300 watts might not be enough?

 

[rogue1979]

Well, 512MB of ram and I am sure you will probably overclocking the heck out of the Geforce 4 Ti 4200. You will be taxing the limit of that power supply. I have used several generic 400-watts for 1400MHz thunderbird and they seem to do fine. However, when you eventually run an XP at 1700MHz+ or a thunderbird at 1500MHz+ 2.0v the generic 400-watt might cause instability...

 

[Shimmishim]

300W is enough for a 1 ghz overclocked .. i got mine to 1.35 and it's running stable with the power supply