AMD CPU Upgrade?

[BigBlue66]

Hello,

I am not sure if I have enough information for you all to help me, but I shall pose my question and if I need to obtain more information, I will certainly do so.

I currently have a CTX computer with a Triton II 430VX chipset and an AMD K-6 200mhz, with MMX technology. I have an Award bios, version unsure of at this point. And I believe the PCI bus runs at 33mhz. Also have L2 512k pipeline burst cache.

I recently decided that I need MORE POWER. So I went from 32megs of ram up to 128megs. Slowed way down. Come to find out, the chipset will only cache 64megs, so I backed off to 64megs. Also installed a Voodoo 4500 PCI video card. It has a built-in 166mhz processor and 32megs ram. Sorry, I don't know which mobo I have at this point, but I can find out if I need to.

The main question is: which AMD CPU can I upgrade to? Would it be possible to upgrade to say, an AMD K-6 III at 550mhz?

Any info shall be greatly appreciated.



[This message has been edited by BigBlue66 (edited 11-02-2000).]

[Paleo Pete]

You'll need a motherboard manual to find out what CPU's the board will support. Write down the BIOS ID string and go to my site below, look for Trish's Escape from Hardware hell, in the Motherboard/BIOS section and there you'll find links to identify the motherboard and maybe get a manual. The manual will tell you what CPU's the board supports. I doubt if it will handle faster than 233 or 266 MHz. I would stick with an Intel for that chipset, that's what it's designed for.

You're right about the memory, the Intel 430 series chipset will only cache 64MB. Any more will slow the system down.

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[scada]

I would also suggest that you think about upgrading the motherboard too( it will only cost you about $150 more at most).
If more power is what you want. A new motherboard would get you pass the 64mb limit, and allow you to upgrade to an AGP2x or 4x slot. The PCI slot is a limiting factor in many of todays games ( if your into games)and most of the best video cards don't have a PCI version. Upgrading will depend on how many legacy expansion cards you have and on your power supply.

[ebaker]

The VX chipset will not run 100 bus speed so you are limited to around 333 mhz IF the bios is compatible. The fastest 66mhz fsb socket 7 chip I am aware of is the K6 III 333. Frys is selling these for $30 or $79 with a motherboard. A new motherboard with a Celeron or Duron might be a better choice in the long run.

[Hardtek1976]

You might want to try this. The K6-2/400 and other AMD cpu's have a remapped multiplier. If you set the bus speed to 66 Mhz and the multiplier to 2x, it will just sing away at 6x, thus 400Mhz. Your board must have the latest bios update, support dual voltage MMX, CPU core voltage of 2.2 volts. Some older bioses do not support the AMD's write allocate feature so you can download an utility called cpu contol panel at www.powerleap.com (http://www.powerleap.com) to solve this issue. This was done with a Microstar MS-5170 motherboard and a K6-2/366 which ran at 400Mhz (overclocked). I have also heard of this being done with other K6-2's, 450's, 500's (underclocked) as this was all they could purchase.