Worth processor upgrade from XP1600 to XP2600 ?

[noblues]

I notice that the AMD XP 2600 chips are now selling for under £80inc, would I notice any real difference from my XP1600 ?

(System has over 1gig of DDR memory, using an ASUS 333 board that will support the XP2600, don't do much gaming ...).

[allthatglitters]

Similar thoughts crossing my mind, 1.2 Athlon to XP2600 Barton or are we just caught in the race for speed? Yes, my motherboard will take it and the bios has been upgraded too.

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

noblues,

You will see a good boost in performance over the 1600+. The 2600+ comes in two flavors, a 266Mhz FSB and a 333Mhz FSB. Before you can use a 333Mhz FSB Chip you will need to flash your BIOS to at least [BIOS 1013 - For the A7V333] or [BIOS 1002 - For the A7V333-X] to accept 333Mhz FSB CPUs.

If you can get a Barton Core 2500+ (£76.50 at dabs.com), it is the Best Bang for the Buck. With Stock AMD Retail Cooling the 2500+ has no trouble running at 2Ghz (Stock is 1.83Ghz)

Take Care,

Capt. Richard J. Gentil, Pres.
Naples Air Center, Inc.
Custom Computers of Naples, Inc.

[PPRuNe Towers]

Ummmm, if you don't game much, you're not rendering scenes from the matrix as a background task and not donating unused clock cycles to the CETI project - errr, well, why??????????

With a gig of DDR plus a couple of layers of processor cache how about the upgrade fans just tell me what possible job you have in mind that will utilise the extra processor speed??

What modifications do you recommend to the entire bus and motherboard architecture for the improvement to become apparent in any aspect of input or output??????

If you just love tweaking and and turbocharging as a hobby that's absolutely fine by me.

Just want to know if there's anyone wanting to claim it'll do anything for real life computer tasks - genuinely:8 :8 :sad:

Don't matter whether it's CPU's, cars or bikes. Increases in the hairy top end of performance are useless other than in very specialised areas. Don't ever bother modding and boosting a motor's revs till you've ensured breathing, fueling and exhaust are optimised - ie input/output and ram (amount and timing for waitstates.)

Otherwise it's just spec sheet willy waving :sad: :sad:

[noblues]

Naples Air Center, Inc - Thanks, I have already upgraded my Bios for 333 FSB (easy with Asus boards can flash them from within windows using their utility).
I'll take a look at Dabs ....

PPRuNe Towers - Uuuuuhhm ! Well, its that thrill of seeing Explorer open that much faster, and my didgital camera pictures 1Meg each open up a trillionth of a second fater that makes it all worth while ! Upgrading is a drug, its like girls who have loads of pairs of shoes and never wear them, for me its buying a chip I don't really need !!!

Cheers

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

PPRuNe Towers,

I am also a Senior Moderator in the Micro-Star International (MSI) Forums for their headquarters in Taiwan. I see people throwing thousands and thousands at their comp, when they could get just about the same performance out of components that cost 1/4 of what they paid.

Then there are the people that go for 1.5Gb or even 3Gb of RAM. They have spent a small fortune in RAM and all it does is give them Alpha Geek (MSI Forum inside joke) Bragging Rights and a slower computer. 99.9% of the people out there do not run anything that would use up 512Mb of RAM. (Adding more increases the size of the memory index table and actually slows their comp down.)

With the current state of technology, it is amazing what performance you can get out of a computer you build entirely out of Best Bang for the Buck Components.

One of the biggest kicks I get out of comps when compared with GA Aircraft is:

Working on GA Aircraft is working on 1930's technology with little movement.

Working on Computers, you have to read the Tech Websites every night or you get left behind. The Industry moves that fast.

But time to come down off my soap box.

Richard

[PPRuNe Towers]

Bang for the buck and great fun working on the beasts - I'm all for it.

However, I always like to make sure the fun and games of ungrading are put in context for the huge numbers on the site who don't get all moist at the thought of water coooling their freon pump ;) ;)

What is utterly fascinating and educational fun for many of you might give the impression to less experienced readers that their day to day use of a computer might be significantly enhanced.

Sadly this simply isn't so unless their productive tasks are very specialised. Bloatware and visual programming systems ensure this is the truth.

As ever, with a sly sideways look at the world,

Rob ;) ;)