2 years ago, I upgraded my computer with a Asus A7N8X-X motherboard, and fitted it with a 1000 Duron and 256mg of memory.

I have progressivly upgraded as the cost of decent components came down (not a cutting edge computerist!). I now have an Athlon 1800+ and 1.5gig of memory and think it is time to upgrade the processor to a 3200.

I have been warned that there are a great deal of fake 3200's around, mainly 2600's with cut L1 and L2's (this is where I am the limit of comprehension ).

As far as I can see, L1 and L2 are just a series of dots, what are they talking about and how can I check that I am not getting ripped off. Allegedly even ebuyer are selling the rebadged 2600's as 3200's


I have added a pickie so folk can draw bit on for a numpty like me to understand

Thanks
Mark
Rescued attachment AMD3200.JPG

The sticker at the bottom says its a 3200.

Heres what a XP3200+ should look like:
http://www.pcgames.de/screenshots/original/XP3200.jpg

Yours looks bang on to me. L9 and L5 should always be cut as this was done to stop people unlocking the clock multiplier on the chip. Still an easy way around it though

XP3200's are very hard to get hold of now, i spent a long time looking for one 6months ago, so i am not suprised a load of fakes have come out. I went with a 3000 in the end...!

David

[Edited on 7/3/06 by flak monkey]

L1 and L2 are memory caches which the processor stores data and instructions in when executing a process.

If yout want a real performance increase you want to upgrade to a Socket 939 motherboard with an Athlon 64 X2 processor, that has two cores and can do two things at once!

quote:

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Originally posted by Mark Allanson
2 years ago, I upgraded my computer with a Asus A7N8X-X motherboard, and fitted it with a 1000 Duron and 256mg of memory.

I have progressivly upgraded as the cost of decent components came down (not a cutting edge computerist!). I now have an Athlon 1800+ and 1.5gig of memory and think it is time to upgrade the processor to a 3200.

I have been warned that there are a great deal of fake 3200's around, mainly 2600's with cut L1 and L2's (this is where I am the limit of comprehension ).

As far as I can see, L1 and L2 are just a series of dots, what are they talking about and how can I check that I am not getting ripped off. Allegedly even ebuyer are selling the rebadged 2600's as 3200's


I have added a pickie so folk can draw bit on for a numpty like me to understand

Thanks
Mark

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quote:

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Originally posted by stevebubs
I'm guessing that on the 2600s, the series of dots get joined up to be a series of lines (links)

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If the 3200 is that hard to get hold of, what is the best bang per buck processor? (the mobo will run 400mhz, and I bought PC3200 even though I could not use it to the full potential with only a 1800+ which runs at 200mhz)

The XP line of processors has been discontinued for several months now I believe. Both Eclipse Computers and Micro Direct are out of stock of them (infact Eclipse dont even list them on their site anymore).

The best thing to do is upgrade your motherboard to Athlon64 939 pin (venice core). Most motherboard still use PC3200 ram and it will be plenty fast enough. All you need to do is change your motherboard and processor.

At the moment the best one to go for looks to be the Athlon64 3200+ Skt 939 pricewise anyway. As for motherboards take your pick from Asus or Gigabyte, both makes have done me extremely well and are currently serving in at least 6 computers i have built over the past couple of years.

Cheers,
David

The Athlon 2600 will only read as a 2600 till you up the multiplier in bios or with jumpers on the motherboard, whichever it uses. There aren't as many socket A processors round now as they are switching to the 64 bit processors. Do you need more speed than you have already, you could save the money now and spend it later on the inevitable motherboard, cpu and memory upgrade. I have only an 1800+ but as I only use it for surfing and a bit of editing at the moment it will do till I get some bits together for a complete overhaul, DDR2, SATAII etc.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.......

I used to buy the Athlon XP "M" peocessor. Sold as a low voltage mobile processor. I would buy the 2500 CPU and up the voltage and FSB (front side bus) and you'd end up with a 3200 equivalent CPU but with better bandwidth cus of the faster FSB.

The Intel cheat was to use a Pentium 4 "C" 2.4GHz CPU which again I would increase the voltage and FSB to get to 3.0+ GHz

There is a fad to use a slower Opteron CPU and do similar (except Opterons don't have a FSB as such) to the above to get a fast FX Athlon CPU equivalent as the Opterons are FX core CPUs with a better memory controller.

Watch out for the 64 bit processors... I am finding an increasing amount of software that does not support it

quote:

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Originally posted by DaveFJ
Watch out for the 64 bit processors... I am finding an increasing amount of software that does not support it

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I've been reading a lot about the new chips and if you use a 32 bit operating system they shouldn't be any different to the 32 bit chips. The 64 bit OS is causing problems with a lack of drivers apparently.

quote:

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Originally posted by Peteff
I've been reading a lot about the new chips and if you use a 32 bit operating system they shouldn't be any different to the 32 bit chips. The 64 bit OS is causing problems with a lack of drivers apparently.

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64bit processors are still a bit pointless, the software structure just isn't there to justify it yet.

unless you have a pc thats really old I would wait for even a year or more if you can.

I have the same motherboard myself running the 2400+ athlon xp, it's a nice little goer and overclocks to a 2600+ speck quite easily. I can't wait to get enough money together to build a new system tho, modern games really crawl along

It's all dependent on the name of the core processor. I'm using the Thoroughbred B core which runs on a 266MHz bus, but the ones you really want to look for are the Barton cored version, these were the last of the proper Athlon XP's - they came in 333Mhz and 400Mhz bus flavours, I believe the 400Mhz ones were the 2500+, 3000+ and 3200+, the pick of the bunch was the 2500+ - fast, cheap and very overclockable.

another good idea would be to get two sticks of quality ram and stick the motherboard into dual channel mode

however, what most people forget is that a computer is only as fast as it's slowest compnent - the hard drive. Unfortunately there ain't much you can do about that with this motherboard as it doesn't support SATA or RAID, you can get add-on cards but they'll have to run through the PCI bus, so the improvement won't be fantastic.

just my tuppence, feel free to correct any errors

The computer runs fine at the moment, and the cost of upgrading is going to be about £120, but for that I can get a few lengths of 25x25x1.6 ERW.

What is going to give me more thrills, a slightly faster pooter of a load of growed up mechano?

I personally wouldn't bother upgrading unless there is a need. ie u play computer games that require high spec or auto cad drawing etc.

my own comp is pretty old, is an AMD K9 900mhz (i think) not sure what the motherboard is. it also only has 750mb of 133 RAM. however it still runs dvd's and avi's and most computer games ok. better than my house mates faster computers in fact. only in the last year has it got a bit obselte in that area. its still great for what i want so would rather spend money on the car!