Asus A7V333 CPU Upgrade

[Old Silver]

At the moment I have an ageing Asus A7V333 Motherboard which is socket A (462) with a Athlon 2100+ CPU, this gives me 1.73GHz .The Bus Speed is 266MHz, and it’s not overclocked.

The Manual says that it supports 266MHz bus speeds and the fastest I can find looking at AMD is the Athlon 2600+ which will give me 2.13MHz.

What I want to know is has anyone put one in this board, Will it work ok? And would I have to go into the BIOS at all to set it up, (I am not going to overclock it; it’s a bit beyond me). I know these may seem daft questions but I have never built a computer or changed a processor in my life, as I have seen the 2600+ at reasonable prices I think I would like to give it a go.

I have already upgraded the graphic card to a nVida 6800GT which as made a big difference, and I am thinking this would hold me for the rest of the year until I upgrade the lot with a new system.
Thanks in advance

 

[Justintime]

400Mhz jump would be unnoticeable to be honest. If your board has a KT333A chipset it might run 166MHz /333 cpus fine, mine did but theres no guarantee yours will and if you want to stay in check then i won't suggest it. The last A7V333 i had ran a Barton 3000+ 333 cpu fine till i sold it, works still afaik.

 

[drunkenmonkey]

getting more memory will prob help you out more! till you upgrade everything.....getting an extra 512mb stick will make a lot of difference running programs in windows (less hanging) making it more smoother and quicker starting!

 

[hp7909]

What's your budget m8? Reason I ask is it might be better/cheaper to go A64 NOW...

• Asrock 939Dual-SATA2 (Socket 939 & Upgradable to AM2) AGP & PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-002-AK) £35.95
• AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3000BPBOX) (CP-117-AM) £49.95
• Subtotal £85.90
• VAT £15.04
• Total £100.94

Your current RAM should work, & if PC3200 even better. Upgrade now/later to GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 (GE2GB3200BDC) (MY-046-GL)

 

[drunkenmonkey]

yeh i bought one of them asrock boards and got a oem athlon 4000+ san diego (82quid) to replace the chip and board in my old athlon xp 1800+ computer.......by all accounts i should be able to clock the chip to fx-57 speeds.......not bad for a 130quid upgrade

 

[mrthingyx]

What's your budget m8? Reason I ask is it might be better/cheaper to go A64 NOW...

... which may cause a few issues as none of us have any realistic ideas as to Vista's hardware requirements. It's all well and good dropping £100 under the case hood for now but IMHO that ton would be better saved for something in six months' (ish) time.

The A7V333 should support anything with a 133MHz frontside bus (the '333' bit refers to the memory speed, unfortunately: go VIA... incidentaly, I had the same issue with my KT400 chipset: 400MHz memory support but not the same for the FSB), so I KNOW a 2400XP will work in there. Hoever, this is where it gets complicated.

If the 2600XP is DEFINATELY a regular XP core and not a funky mobile Barton (different voltages, y'see) then it might work with a change of your mobo's BIOS (as 15x is probably the highest multiplier you can get hold of on that motherboard in its current state of being). However, I KNOW a 2400XP will definately work in there.

As to what the chip will do if you just stick it in... it should just work. It is configured to work at a front side bus of 133MHz and a 15x multiplier, which gives you 2GHz-odd (1995MHz or something). You might need to set the multiplier to get it to run properly, but that's pretty simple

Being a KT333 chipset, forget any real overclocking as the board comes with the PCI/AGP buses unlocked, meaning borked Windows installations if you play too far outside the envelope.


Will it be worth upgrading to AMD64? That depends on what you're doing with it, really. If you have a 6800GT in there already, I wouldn't be worry about it too much: CPU speed does have a big effect on almost all games but I think you'll be fine with your current setup until Vista is released...

 

[Justintime]

Being a KT333 chipset, forget any real overclocking as the board comes with the PCI/AGP buses unlocked, meaning borked Windows installations if you play too far outside the envelope.


...

The chipset has dividers for 166Mhz, my A7V333 and KX333 both ran 166Mhz cpus without issue, though they had a later rev of the KT333, not sure if it was officially a KT333A.

 

[Old Silver]

Ok, thanks for the replies to one and all, Although I forgot to mention it I have got 1536MB of ram fitted (3x512 Mb 133.3Mhz DDR chips), into the three slots.
When I got the memory 1GB chips were not available.
I think on second thought, Justintime may well have hit the nail on the head; it may not be worth the aggro to upgrade to only gain 400Mz as my system is working ok at the moment and we are into August and I would probably get something sorted after Christmas anyway.

Thanks for the time and input, I’ll toddle on till then and see what Oc has at that time.
Sorry to have been a pain for nothing.

 

[mrthingyx]

The chipset has dividers for 166Mhz, my A7V333 and KX333 both ran 166Mhz cpus without issue, though they had a later rev of the KT333, not sure if it was officially a KT333A.

That would be correct: just as the KT400 had/has similar issues with 400MHz DDR... only to have it rectified with KT400A.

Still, mea culpa.