Time to upgrade CPU (and MB?)

[jwocky]

I've gotten extremely helpful advise here so far, so thought I'd ask another one:

I've currently got a P4 1.4 on an Asus P4S333 (400mhz FSB). I was looking into upgrading the 1.4 to a 2.4 chip. But then that got me thinking maybe I'll just upgrade both the MB (to either a 533 or 800mhz FSB) and the CPU to a 2.4ghz (since the CPU costs the same anyway). What do you guys think? What will the difference in speed of my system overall with either of these options? Any other comments/suggestions is greatly appreciated!

Also, what happens when I swap out both the CPU and motherboard - will I still be able to use my same copy of WinXP?

Thanks.

 

[Matthias99]

I won't comment on your CPU/MB choices, as I've been using AMD recently and other people here know more about it.

However, I *did* recently upgrade my MB and CPU. You *can* keep your Windows installation, but it's sort of a pain. What you want to do is a "Repair Installation"; boot up off the XP CD, and once it comes up and finishes loading, hit enter like you're going to install. It will first check if you have any existing installations, and you can hit select one and hit 'R' to repair it.

What this does is wipe out the hardware portion of your registry and redetect correct drivers for your new hardware. Afterwards, you'll need to install your motherboard drivers, and then probably uninstall and reinstall drivers for any other hardware you have (video card, sound card, etc.). It does work, but it's a bit trickier than just wiping out the whole installation and starting over.

 

[jwocky]

There should be a very significant speed upgrade in just swapping out the 1.4 for a 2.4ghz cpu (without swapping the motherboard) right?

 

[InlineFive]

Originally posted by: jwocky
There should be a very significant speed upgrade in just swapping out the 1.4 for a 2.4ghz cpu (without swapping the motherboard) right?

It should, I noticed a good performance increase by taking an 800Mhz Athlon jump.

 

[jwocky]

Anyone have an idea how much faster (% wise) to just upgrade the CPU without upgrading the mb? 50% 100%?

 

[Camofrog]

what are you willing to spend? on cpu and mobo?

I would reccomend also just a P4 2.6 cus they only like $10 more than a 2.4ghz

and a motherboard would make a big difference reccomend the P4P800 for the price.probably bout $90 to $120.
and a cpu at about $150 to $180.

what are you other system specs?

 

[jwocky]

I'm starting to shy away from getting a new motherboard, as that means getting new memory too. I'd just like to speed up my system right now for as little $ as possible (hence, asking about just upgrading the CPU). My other system specs: Radeon 8500, WD Raptor Drive, 512mb DDR.