DescentBB

I am finally going to break down and buy a new quiet case soon. While I'm at it breaking down all the parts, I figure I might as well upgrade my CPU if I can. Currently I have a 2600+ AMD, and a gigabyte GA7vt600 motherboard. I think my DDR memory goes up to 400. Can I stick say a 3200+ processor in there?

oh yeah.

find a mobile barton 2500+, and overclock it to 3200+(or even past that)

that is if you can find one. you might be better off waiting for an excuse to upgrade to 64-bit parts.

I have a 2500+ Mobile. Best $88 I ever spent. It's running at 200 x 12. That's the equivalent of a 3600+ if there is such a thing... It idles at 35C in this Koolance case with water to it. Wicked good chip and the whole rig is very very quiet.

im doing 12.5 x 169 right now.

I wasn't smart enough to get DDR that can run at 200mhz

all air cooled too

Is this it?

Supported CPU
CPU Socket Type Socket A (Socket 462)
CPU Type Athlon XP/Athlon/Duron
FSB 400/333MHz

Any 32bit socket A proc that is 400mhz fsb will work.

edit:: Yikes, three posts snuck in while I was checking the board's fsb

Ya a 3200 will work, like testi said, any socketA CPU will work.

Though the online stores seem to be running dry on these chips...
Zipzoomfly does have them tho
Retail
OEM

BTW any chance that the 2600 u are running right now is a mobile chip? If so they overclock better then the 2500 Mobiles. But since u say u want to move to a quiet case, OCing might not be what u want to do.

Wish I had the cooling in my case to push my 2500 Barton to those speeds.
Sitting @2700 atm.

hmm I dont see mobile bartons anywhere, why not just buy the 3200 chip and overclock that?

that zipzoom price is a rip, they are $100 less on pricewatch

Why overclock a 3200 in the first place? Isn't that fast enough? I still do a lot of my graphic and sound work on an 800mhz (Granted, not for long)

Birdseye wrote:why not just buy the 3200 chip and overclock that?

This article explains why the 2500 Mobile is such a great chip.

$89 at Newegg. Read the over 200 customer reviews. It's an amazing chip.

Wow, cool article.

I'm mainly buying this to reward myself for moving to an Antec Sonata case. I hate having to dissemble crap and screw stuff in, so getting a CPU boost will be the carrot on the stick for myself. I noticed that it does better in CPU intensive tests, which is good because audio apps do a lot of pure number crunching. Every program has a 'cpu meter'
It sounds like a overclocked 2500 mobile will beat a 3200, but I wonder how much you could overclock a 3200.. probably not too much. Since I'm going the quiet route, I need to make sure that I can use a low RPM cooling fan on the mobile, even if overclocked. I guess it's just a matter of watching the temperature as I clock up...

I will notice the difference, as audio apps (like video) can take ALL the cpu you can get. You could give me a computer 100x more powerful and I'd figure out how to max it out, even using today's programs. I've resorted to using FX Teleport which lets me use two computers together on the same project over LAN.

The 266 FSB seems slow though, I thought the 3200 could do 400.. but in those tests the 3200 did worse on all of them, so the whole argument that bus speed is just as important as clock throws me a loop... I just want the best processor to fit in my existing motherboard

Thanks, I'll be using two suggestions on this board for my next upgrade -- case and CPU. I tend to do upgrades very slowly over time. My next upgrade will probably just be RAM, CPU, motherboard.

I'm going to buy a new video card too since this V5 is about to die (i've been seeing flickering on the screen from yellowish to whiteish). And its a ★■◆●ing beast. I want something with no fan either, just a heatsink. I wish the AGP spec didn't change, it's such a load of ★■◆●. A voodoo 3 would be fine for me. I guess I could just pick up two PCI V3's to do dual monitors. But blah... I don't want to spend $150 for something I don't need just because the damn AGP spec changed and my video card doesn't fit.

Doesn't have to be the 2500+ mobile, actually, the regular 2500+ 333fsb is an excellent overclocker too, I have mine up to 3200+ and another of my team members had his watercooled and up to 2400mhz+

If u want to achieve a high OC with a 2500/2600 mobile u are going to need good cooling. Most people use 1.7 to 1.9v on these chips to reach 2400-2600MHz

And that much voltage produces a lot of heat.

And capm when did u get ur 2500? The newer 2500 desktop chips have locked multi's. As far as I know the mobile chips are still unlocked. Yours locked?

My 1700+ chip defaults to 1.47 and I am always running it at 2.4 GHz, to get there it required 1.8v core voltage. This would not be something you wanna do on a retail heatsink, I have a very powerful water cooling system to keep my chip under 35C. I probably couldn't reach these 2.4-2.5 GHz speeds on air cooling at all.

Why upgrade a component which won't fit in your next system? Doesn't seem like a smart move to me Birds.

I'd just replace the case, and get it working nice and quiet.

Later, chuck out the contents and do a proper upgrade.

I would try OCin that 2600 u already have before u do anything

I donâ??t think u will get much w/o a nice HS though. BTW what kind of HSF combo are u running? stock?

Your best bet for quite AIR cooling w/o much noise would be a Thermalright Socket A Heatsink that takes a 92MM + fan. Something like an SP-97 or a SLK-947U
Make sure these will fit on ur MB before u buy tho, because they are kind of big.

With the 92MM fan u can push a lot of air w/o much noise. Just stay under 35db with a good name brand fan. Panaflo makes some of the best noise to air ratio fans. Something like this might be pretty good.

Birds, my 2500+ IS running a 400FSB (200 x 12). Dont let that 266 FSB rating bother you at all. it can be pushed much higher.

well since I have to move everything, it doesn't seem like that big of a thing to just swap CPU's out. I was considering getting a new quiet HS/fan but it won't be upgradable to I won't bother. I want this to take me for another year, as I'm really not very impressed with the 'latest and greatest' right now. I remember the HUGE increases in speed we saw for years, then boom the last 1.5 years its been crawling, for apple and for intel/amd (though now apple is using intel soon). i'm waiting for dual core, or something. I'd spend $1000 on a new cpu/mb ram combo but I want it to KNOCK MY SOCKS OFF.

This cpu, after I sell my old one, will only cost me $40. I'll just

My only concern is that I because I'm going to stay with stock cooling and that the stock won't cut it for an overclock... Pun, what heatsink/fan are you using? I'm wondering if it is safer to just grab an OEM 3200 than try to oc the 2500+

i've tested the 2600 in my pc now, it cant overclock for ★■◆●.

Birds, dual cores are already out
Intel dual cores are on newegg
and AMD dual cores are on monarchcomputer.com

Birds I'm watercooled. But dude, I dont need to be. I mean under full load in a hot room I'm at 35C. Berlieve me, if you put one of those fat Zalmans on there with the 120mm fan, it'll cool it just fine and be nice and quiet. You're gonna need to change your heatsink anyway if you want quiet. You'll defeat the purpose of the Sonata if you put cheap heatsink on there.

dual cores are out, but i see no explosive results yet (extreme edition, right). I am going to wait a year till something really knocks my socks off and the price comes down somewhat.

hmm, i dont really want to have to pop for a zalman, but do you know any that will work well but aren't too expensive?

ur guna waste ur time trying to overclock if u don't even wana spend $50 on a decent HS
Good cooling is one of the most, if not the most important part of overclocking.

There are heatsinks that you can buy that'll cool it, but not if you're concerned with noise. You can get a zalman with a 120 for like 35 bucks.

Mine is one of the older 2500+ chips, b4 they started locking them, but there are ways around that, too.

I have an all-copper HS/Fan From Newegg

Its quiet and keeps it cool.
I set the core voltage up a couple notches to make it stable. I'm just 20mhz under 3200+ But compared with other 3200+ chips I haven't really been able to see the performance difference between the two, so whether you overclock a 2500+ or just get a 3200+ its all in how much fun you have overclocking.

Yeah, I am starting to think it might be smarter to just pick up a 3200 and not overclock, the zalman heatsink/fan combo will run $40+85 cpu and that's the cost of the 3200... although then I'd have a quieter setup. so still not sure

Capm wrote: I have an all-copper HS/Fan From Newegg

That thing right there is the reason u can only hit 2140MHz
I still think they need to change their name to Thermalmistake =)

Difference between cheap Air and Water:

That is my $40 dollar Athlon XP 1700+ T-bred B.

Birdseye wrote:Yeah, I am starting to think it might be smarter to just pick up a 3200 and not overclock, the zalman heatsink/fan combo will run $40+85 cpu and that's the cost of the 3200... although then I'd have a quieter setup. so still not sure

Yeah, man. Either way you're gonna have to buy a heatsink if you dont want to make noise.

punisher wrote:

Birdseye wrote:Yeah, I am starting to think it might be smarter to just pick up a 3200 and not overclock, the zalman heatsink/fan combo will run $40+85 cpu and that's the cost of the 3200... although then I'd have a quieter setup. so still not sure

Yeah, man. Either way you're gonna have to buy a heatsink if you dont want to make noise.

If ur not going to OC the 3200, then the stock HS will do fine, and they are practically silent.

Matrix, you couldn't be more wrong about that heatsink/fan. Thermals are NOT my limiting factor.

damn, I was all about to get a zalman and the mobile, but then newegg was out of them... maybe i will just stick this mobo into the sonata... i decided on an all in wonder 9600 for my dualie and TV needs.

Yes, I see that. However, they do have the 2400+ in stock. By the look of the reviews, those are clocking just as good.

not bad. do you have a quiet and not too expensive zalman you can reccomend?

Here, man, 29.95 at Directron

That's the 92mm version. I've used this in a Sonata before. It's real quiet and should get you a nice overclock without having to run balls out. You could probably get a 120mm version in there with modding. I dont know how comfortable you are with modding, but for the money, that thing is nice and quiet.

Check zalman's website to make sure your mobo will will work with it. I used this cooler with an NF7S v2.0 and Sonata.

nope, my mobo is not supported, and i dont think its supported by any zalman's (I only checked 2 though)... oh well, is there another reputable company for quiet components

Get a thermalright and a panaflo like I said before.