ASUS P5A MOTHERBOARD UPGRADE

[TFM614]

HELLO;
I AM RUNNING AN AST 150 MHZ PENTIUM, IT IS ABOUT 3 YEARS OLD NOW. I HAVE BEEN HEARING A LOT OF GOOD THINGS ABOUT THE ASUS P5A MOTHERBOARD. I AM SERIOUSLY THINKING OF PURCHASING THIS BOARD AND BUILD MY OWN SYSTEM. MY QUESTION IS.......
(1) I AM NOT A BIG 3D GAME PLAYER
AND I AM WONDERING IF THAT IS WHAT THE BIG RAVE ABOUT THE BOARD IS ALL ABOUT.
(2) I AM SURE THE ANSWER IS YES BUT,
IF I PURCHASE THIS BOARD POP IN A 350 MHZ PROCESSOR..IN CONTRAST WITH THE 150 MHZ CLUNKER TO THE ASUS P5A WITH 350 MHZ WILL THE SPEED BE WORTH THE BARGAIN OTHER THAN PLAYING GAMES... ANY INFORMATION WILL BE APPRECIATED ...

[Aris]

There are 2 flavors, there's a P5A which goes in a newer ATX style case, and the P5AB which goes into the older style AT case. Keep that in mind.

People like both because they are good overclocking boards.

You'll need DIMMs for memory, they don't take SIMMS.

I'd wait a little while, the CPU wars are just starting to go into full swing. To help hold you over try this. Find the jumpers on your motherboard. You have a 150, jumpered as 60MHz with a 2.5 multiplier. Change the jumpers to 66MHz and leave the 2.5 multipler. This will definitely speed up you system nicely. If you don't have a heatsink on the processor spend $10 and get one. You'll be happy. Your 150 should not have a problem running at 166, it's a lousy 10% increase.

[TFM614]

Thank you Aris for your reply.
I bought this system because there was a lot of illness in the family and I did not have the time to look around for the components I needed to build my own system... Now the computer world has really changed from the 486 DX 4/100 days (the last system I built).

Yes, the price wars will be beginning soon... I will wait it out...
Thanks again Aris for the helpful information

TFM614