by congo » Wed Mar 02, 2005 10:49 am
What Birdman said.........
But if you are not replacing the MOBO, then the 3200+ is a good solution.
There is more to this than meets the eye, and you will get a big performance increase if you configure things correctly.
The nForce2 ultra 400 chipset that your mainboard has was one of the best chipsets ever produced. It supports 266, 333, and 400mhz FSB speeds (DDR) and it's not automatically a 400mhz FSB mainboard.
The AMD XP2200+ CPU that you currently have in there is a 266mhz FSB speed CPU. (well, I'm 99% sure it is).
This means that your FSB speed is actually 266mhz DDR.
Typically, the XP range of cpu's hit the 333mhz FSB speed from the 2600+ to the 3000+, and the 3200+ is a 400mhz FSB speed CPU.
Any increase in FSB speed gives immediate and profound bandwidth increases for your PC. Bandwidth is the potential your PC has to process and move data. Bandwidth is easily measured and is a direct indicator of how powerful and fast your PC can be.
Quite simply, not only will you get a fast CPU, (and the 3200+ IS a very fast CPU!), but you will get an enormous bandwidth increase due to the faster 400mhz FSB speed. Fast bus speed eliminates bottlenecking of data on the bus, allowing fast transfer rates and the resultant high bandwidth.
However, there is another factor to consider before all is well, particularly with your nForce2 chipset. The RAM.
If your RAM is currently PC3200 - 400mhz DDR, then all is fine, as long as the RAM is matched and running correctly in DUAL CHANNEL MODE.
If the RAM is PC2100 or PC2700, then you won't get the full benefit of the XP3200+ CPU upgrade.
If the RAM is not running in dual channel mode, because of mismatched modules or otherwise, a similar performance penalty applies.
This type of AMD CPU based system runs very fast (highest potential bandwidth) if the whole system is running "in sync", that is, if the CPU, FSB and RAM speeds are identical.
So, you get a 400mhz XP3200+ CPU, the bus runs with it at 400mhz, and the PC3200 RAM glides along with it at 400mhz also.
This syncronization frees the CPU from making extra calculations to convert clock speeds from 1 bus to the other, hence the high performance.
So, now you need to consider whether or not you need new RAM for your new 3200+ CPU, and if you don't have PC3200 RAM, then you will need it to realise a decent performance increase.
The RAM should also be of reasonable quality, (not expensive, but reasonable. Kingston PC3200 CL3 "Value Ram" is sufficient.)
The RAM also needs to be configured as two matching modules in order to activate the dual channel ram configuration. It should be two 512mb modules, unless you have a specific reason to add them as two 1024mb modules. (two 256mb modules will work, but it's not enough really.)
Check your ASUS mainboard manual to see if the RAM needs to be buffered, (I doubt it).
If you plan on overclocking the front side bus, then more expensive ram may be required. Quality Ram is required at this system specification for stability at high speed, cheap and nasty RAM simply WILL NOT PERFORM.
So, now if you have to buy ram as well, and this very same ram will work fine in a shiny new 64 bit system, then you need to consider how much extra it will cost you to just go straight to a 64bit CPU/mobo /ram upgrade.
Your last question jimbo..........
A 3200+ will run more or less like a 3.2ghz P4 CPU. The actual clock speed is not really relevant, and the 3200 rating is loosely based on a "P" rating, or pentium equivalent. The 3200+ CPU gets it's performance from factors other than pure clock speed.
Mainboard: Asus P5K-Premium, CPU=Intel E6850 @ x8x450fsb 3.6ghz, RAM: 4gb PC8500 Team Dark, Video: NV8800GT, HDD: 2x1Tb Samsung F3 RAID-0 + 1Tb F3, PSU: Antec 550 Basiq, OS: Win7x64, Display: 24&
