Processor Upgrade
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From: Gordon Darling on 29 Mar 2010 16:52 On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:44:30 +0000, Folderol wrote: > I have an asus motherboard AM2 socket carrying an Athlon 4200 > > I understand this mobo has a maximum clock speed of 3.2G > > I saw a recommendation for upgrade to a Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition > but this was quite an old article and these seem as rare as hens teeth. > > I've seen suggestions to go for a 955 but these are AM3. People say they > are backwards compatible with AM2, but logic says there must be some > performance or feature downgrade. > > Does anyone know if this is in fact a practical upgrade and/or if there > is a better one (changing the mobo is not an option). > > The machine is used heavily for music development - particularly > softsynths. CPU support for M2NPV-VM motherboard. This help? http://support.asus.com/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx?SLanguage=en- us&model=M2A-VM&product=1> Regards Gordon -- ox·y·mo·ron n. pl. ox·y·mo·ra or ox·y·mo·rons A rhetorical figure in which incongruous or contradictory terms are combined, as in Microsoft Security, Microsoft Help and Microsoft Works.
From: Folderol on 29 Mar 2010 17:17 On 29 Mar 2010 20:52:24 GMT Gordon Darling <me(a)privacy.net> wrote: > On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:44:30 +0000, Folderol wrote: > > > I have an asus motherboard AM2 socket carrying an Athlon 4200 > > > > I understand this mobo has a maximum clock speed of 3.2G > > > > I saw a recommendation for upgrade to a Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition > > but this was quite an old article and these seem as rare as hens teeth. > > > > I've seen suggestions to go for a 955 but these are AM3. People say they > > are backwards compatible with AM2, but logic says there must be some > > performance or feature downgrade. > > > > Does anyone know if this is in fact a practical upgrade and/or if there > > is a better one (changing the mobo is not an option). > > > > The machine is used heavily for music development - particularly > > softsynths. > > > CPU support for M2NPV-VM motherboard. This help? > > http://support.asus.com/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx?SLanguage=en- > us&model=M2A-VM&product=1> > > Regards > Gordon Very useful link thanks .... now why couldn't I find that? -- Will J G
From: Gordon Darling on 29 Mar 2010 17:23 On Mon, 29 Mar 2010 22:17:28 +0100, Folderol wrote: > On 29 Mar 2010 20:52:24 GMT > Gordon Darling <me(a)privacy.net> wrote: <snip> >> CPU support for M2NPV-VM motherboard. This help? >> >> http://support.asus.com/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx?SLanguage=en- >> us&model=M2A-VM&product=1> > > Very useful link thanks > ... now why couldn't I find that? I feel the pain! I have an Abit motherboard and I went through hoops trying to find CPU support information for it. So decided to do a bit of digging for you. If anything the Asus site is worse than the Abit site! Regards Gordon -- ox·y·mo·ron n. pl. ox·y·mo·ra or ox·y·mo·rons A rhetorical figure in which incongruous or contradictory terms are combined, as in Microsoft Security, Microsoft Help and Microsoft Works.
From: Jim Price on 29 Mar 2010 17:30 Folderol wrote: > Thanks for such a detailed (but ultimately depressing) reply. > > I didn't want to go for a whole motherboard upgrade, partly because I > don't want to 'waste' a seeming fully functional unit, but also because > I'd only about 18 months ago got a new graphics card for it, and about > a year ago doubled the memory to 4G so wanted to get some value for > money out of it all. > > I'm wondering if an Athlon 5600 might be a reasonable > intermediate compromise 2.9G (where as the current one is 2.2G but still > low power. Expect about 30% speed increase, plus a few percent for each stepping. My rule of thumb is it needs to be twice as fast to feel the speed increase. > I've also seen them advertised for 40-50 quid. Very good value, and unlike some Intel cheapies, good hardware support for virtualisation. I'm using a 5050e - it only uses 45W (peak) at 2.6GHz, but is not noticeably faster than a 3800 in general use. > The other point is that I have a Sempron in my 'office' machine, with a > similar motherboard, so could push the old Athlon over to that and > get two bites of the cherry. That might make an upgrade make sense. > I run debian based OSs. Currently squeeze with RT patches. It's mostly Debian based here too, with a spot of OpenBSD and Opensolaris. I've got Nokia N900 envy at the moment, but no budget for one. -- JimP
From: Folderol on 2 Apr 2010 14:09
Just a minor progress report I decided to go for the 5600, and ordered one for a total of 46 quid. Because of the Easter break I might *just* get it Saturday, but I expect it's more likely to arrive in the middle of next week. In preparation, yesterday I upgraded the bios to 1401 and this seemed to go without problems. I don't notice any difference with the current processor - but then I wasn't expecting to! -- Will J G |