Which CPU do you recommend for my board?

[jpd157]

Hello all,

Very new member here. Just signed up.

Anyway, I have been up all night trying to research which CPU I should upgrade to. Currently I have a 2 year old Gateway Pentium III 500 Mhz. (It is 100mhz bus, I think). I was told by a Gateway online-tech that my motherboard has a "slot 1" connection for the processor.

Having this in mind, are all other connections ruled out? I have seen several different types (socket 370, Socket A, Socket B, Flip Chip, 478 pin) and don't really know where to go from here. I assume that I must stick with the Slot 1 processors; is this correct? Or is there a converter of some sort? And if so, is it worth it?

Additionally, if I have a 100mhz bus speed processor, can I replace it with a 133mhz bus processor?

Well, I could go on all night with my questions. I guess I'll just leave it at this: Can someone point me in the right direction in my search for a faster processor? (PIII, P4, Celeron; I don't care either way)).

Thanks for your insight,
Eric

p.s. I do have another stick of 128 mb memory coming; that has already been recommended by a friend.

 

[MCS]

Hello, and welcome to the Forums

Slot 1 CPUs are VERY hard to come by these days, if at all (unless you look for second-hand ones). However, you can in fact buy a Socket 370 or "flip-chip" P3/Celeron and an adapter card for Slot 1 - they are very cheap. You would of course need the appropriate cooler for the Socket type chip. You P3 will definitely be 100Mhz bus. I doubt your board will support 133Mhz bus, but we don't know that for sure until we know which motherboard you have. I don't suppose you can go into the BIOS and have a look on Gateway systems?

FYI the other Socket types you mentioned are Athlon and P4 standards and these require different motherboards.

Hope this helps

 

[oldfart]

Welcome to the forums!

Because its a Gateway, its a little tough to answer. You may be able to upgrade it to a PIII Coppermine or Celeron II. It depends on the motherboard that is in it. You need to find the model, serial number, and revision of the motherboard.

 

[techwanabe]

Wecome to Anandtech forums jpd,

You can probably find a slot one CPU which will fit your mobo and work fine. As mentioned above, the slot one's are harder to find but if you go to pricewatch.com, you can probably locate one without too much difficulty. Alternatively, you could get a good quality "slotket" adapter and use a socket 370 CPU that way.

Be aware that when the Coppermine Pentium III FCPGA socket 370 CPUs came out, they would not work on motherboards designed for Celeron PGA CPUs in many cases. Though they may "drop in" to the socket, some pin functions were different much like the Tualitins are supposed to be. I have never seen any literature on the "newer" slot one Coppermine's to see if there is an issue there. They are referred to as SECC2 I believe. It is likely that you have some upgrade available to you, just do your homework.

 

[dbcrossfire]

The largest selectionf of slot 1 cpu's that I have found (that are new) is at googlegear.com I think they range from a 633p3 coppermine to a 1.0p3 coppermine.

Yes, I would call gateway back and ask them what the max is for the cpu that you can fit on that board. I would say that if it has a 500 p3 now... it SHOULD be able to go to a 700+...