2600xp worth the money?

[zeebs]

Hey. Well I recently fried my processor Athlon xp2600+ and I'm looking to buy a new one to replace it. I'm trying to decide as to whether I should buy the same one over again for $100 or if I should upgrade. Here's the specs:

proc: was athlon xp2600+
mobo: gigabyte ga-7vaxp
vid: nvidiaiti4600
mem: 1gig
hd: 80gig 7200rpm
hd2: 60gig 7200rpm

my motherboard can support the barton core if I flash the bios... but my thinking is if the board isn't made stock for the barton core will it perform as well and i'm a bit stingy about shelling out cash when I may not need to.

[Bigjakkstaffa]

I would get the Barton 2500+ and update the BIOS, the Barton will overclock very well and although i dont know much about your mobo's capabilities if you can get the FSB up a decent way your lookin at one very good CPU at a very low price

--Jakk

[zeebs]

so the fact that the mobo wasn't made stock for a barton core you don't think will effect the performance?

[Bigjakkstaffa]

No, as long as the BIOS update comes from gigabyte then it should run the Barton fine

--Jakk


edit: BTW whats the maximum possible front side bus/CPU frequency offered by that board 166Mhz or more?

[zeebs]

hmm..

Bigjakkstaffa,
when researching I found this article check it out.

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Ha...te7vaxp/4.html

[Bigjakkstaffa]

Ah great it supports up to 200Mhz FSB, which is good if you wanna overclock the barton. The way the FSB values are limited would be quite a stumbling block if you were to try overclocking the 2600+ as it is a 133Mhz FSB chip, and the highest you would be allowed to push the FSB is 165Mhz

Sadly i dont think the board will autounlock the multiplier as it isnt an Nforce 2 board, but in terms of overclockign it looks like you will probably be able to do more with the barton than you could the tbred

--Jakk

[zeebs]

so the barton 2500 plus oc to a fsb of 200. what would that perform at vs the 2600+?

dont think the board will autounlock the multiplier

then how do you oc? have to do it through software instead of hardware? (i'm new to overclocking)


edit: forogt to mention in specs ram is pc2700 ddr cooled memory. if that impacts any suggestions.

[Bigjakkstaffa]

most PC2700 can do 200Mhz (PC3200) easy enough. Even if the multipliers locked you can still overclock just using the FSB only, it runs on an 11x multiplier at default so if you were lucky you could maybe even get it runnign at 200FSB x 11 = 2.2Ghz which would give you a chip equal to the XP3200+

Of course this is all maybe's but your almost certain to match if not beat the 2600+ in terms of overclocking

--Jakk

[zeebs]

what about buying a barton 3000xp+ think it's worth the $$

[BipolarBill]

No.

[Triton]

Just curious, how did you fry your old XP 2600? i would hope that whatever mistake it was wouldt be made again haha

[zeebs]

bipolarbill,

why no?

[BipolarBill]

Because a 2500+ with the multiplier released outperforms the 3000+. Waste of money.

Besides, ask yourself if you really need that much juice in the first place. My guess is that you don't. I know that I don't!

[zeebs]

but if i burn out the 2500 as well ill be spending more than i would of if i just had bought the 3000 because then ill have to buy a replacement for the 2500.

what about pc2700 memory?

[BipolarBill]

Originally posted by zeebs
but if i burn out the 2500 as well ill be spending more than i would of if i just had bought the 3000 because then ill have to buy a replacement for the 2500.

Huh? Just don't kill it.

Get PC3200 if you can. It allows you to overclock the Barton CPUs.