Says my gigabyte 7N400 Pro2 doesn't support amd64??

[mato7742]

Recently i was browsing at some online stores because i'm interested in upgrading my athlonxp 2000+ to an athlon64 3000+, however most of the sites i went to said my motherboard (gigabyte 7N400 Pro2) supported athlonxp and duron, but nothing about supporting the athlon64... if i bought an athlon64 3000+, would my current motherboard not function with it at its full potential?? if not, are there any suggestions as to what motherboard i should upgrade to?

 

[mechBgon]

The Athlon 64's are quite a bit different from the AthlonXPs, both physically and in terms of how they work. The price of progress here is a new motherboard but you can sell your old one or make a second rig out of it later

The Asus K8V Deluxe is one board I keep looking at. That one's using a VIA chipset, and there's another motherboard chipset for Athlon 64 that everyone's waiting to see: SiS 755. So far, I know of one place you can get a motherboard with the SiS 755 chipset: AxionTech At under $100 with good features and performance, the main question is whether it's a good reliable motherboard. ECS is often regarded as the generic-ish budget brand of motherboards. Anyway, hope that helps

 

[mato7742]

well what would you recommend - upgrading to an athlon64 3000+ and buying a new motherboard or just upgrading my cpu from a 2000+xp to a 2800+xt?

 

[mechBgon]

First can you check and see what speed your present memory modules are rated for? PC2100, PC2700, or PC3200? Or to use the other naming scheme, DDR266, DDR333 or DDR400?

 

[mato7742]

um... noob question, but where can i find this out at?

 

[LoneWolf1]

Originally posted by: mato7742
um... noob question, but where can i find this out at?

Download and run CPU-Z

 

[mechBgon]

Oftentimes the modules will have a sticker that reveals the speed too.

 

[mato7742]

ddr-sdram pc2700 - 512mb

 

[mechBgon]

Hmmm, well you could re-use your PC2700 with an AthlonXP 2500+ or 2800+ at stock speeds. Overclocking the 2500+ is a popular thing to do, but it requires boosting the memory speed to PC3200 speeds, so that would be luck of the draw as to whether your PC2700 feels like running at PC3200 speeds or not.

Athlon64 is made for PC3200, although I think it can run slower memory if it has to (and takes a performance hit). So if you want to overclock a 2500+, or get an A64, budget for some PC3200. In both cases, you can start with what you've got and see if the RAM will do PC3200 speeds stably.

Hope that helps, I've got to head to work now