Changing CPUs

[eeper]

I currently have an Athlon Socket A XP2600 on a MSI K7N2 Delta motherboard. I have just ebayed myself a XP3200 which is the fastest CPU the mobo can take.

Do I just have to drop the new CPU in the slot or are there jumper/BIOS settings to play with? I believe the FSB speed is different - will this affect my RAM?

 

[fireblade900]

I think you need DDR400 to got with that CPU as they run at 200fsb.

 

[Edeath]

yes you need DDR400 with a xp3200+

 

[Jokester]

Not sure on that particular board, but normally you would be able to run the CPU on a 200MHz bus with the memory at 166MHz. You'll need to have a look in the BIOS.

Jokester

 

[Edeath]

actually scrap that. you may be able to run the xp3200+ with ddr333 but this depends on your motherboard. But with the price of ram at the moment its well worth the change to ddr400 for a performance boost.

Ed

 

[CurlyWhirly]

I am probably wrong but I thought that if you run the memory at a different speed to the CPU then it would affect performance as they both need to be in 'sync' so to speak

 

[eeper]

Thanks folks.

I currently have 2x256Mb DIMMs and 1x512Mb Dimm. The 512Mb one is al ater add-on and I know that one is DDR400. Not too sure about the other ones as they were in the system when I got it. How can I find out - is there some sort of diagnostic tool I can get or is it printed on the side of the modules?

 

[Street]

Download and run CPU-Z, it should be able to tell you what each RAM stick is...

CPU-Z

Failing that, it might be printed on the side of the RAM like you said