Re: Any wisdom in this upgrade?

"DK" <dk@no.email.thankstospam.net> wrote in message
news:aw5Lh.99$bB5.12@newsfe04.lga...
>I have an aging system that really suits me well and I would like,
> if possible, to extend its useful life for as much as it makes
> sense (financial and computing):
>
> Asus A7V400-MX (Socket A) - Sempron 2200+
> single stick 512 Mb 333 GHz DDR RAM
> 2x120 Gb ATA133 disks
>
> I am considering an upgrade for about $100. It can be done
> now or a year later, depending on prices.
>
> According to Asus, the board supports these CPUs at the
> high range:
>
> Athlon XP 2800+(333 MHZ FSB)(Model 10)(Barton)
> Athlon XP 2800+(333FSB)(Model 8)(Thoroughbred)
> Athlon XP 2900+
> Athlon XP 3000+(333 MHZ FSB)(Model 10)(Barton)
> Athlon XP 3000+(400 MHz FSB)(Model 10)(Barton)
> Athlon XP 3200+(400 MHz FSB)(Model 10)(Barton)
> Sempron 2800+ (Model 10)
> Sempron 2800+ (Model 8)
> Sempron 3000+
>
> Questions:
> 1. What kind of speed increase in performance (say, DivX
> encoding) can I expect by upgrading from to Sempron 2200+
> to the speediest CPU in the above list?
>
> 2. Today, a used Sempron 3000+ can be had for ~ $70 delivered,
> used Athlon XP 2800+ for ~$100 and used Athlon XP 3200+
> for ~ $130. Would an upgrade to any of these make sense or
> would I pay about the same for a new mobo/CPU/RAM
> combination that is much faster?
>
> 3. How do CPUs in the above list compare?
>
> Thanks,
>
> DK

I dont do much encoding but on my old XP2400 a 2 hour film would take around
4 hours to encode to xvid and I did one the other day on my A64 4000 and it
took just under 1hr 30min using the same encoding program and settings.
So logically you would see a performance increase but just how much is
difficult to say - you may shave half an hour off encoding time.

Semprons have very little L2 cache (even as little as 128kb) and the
Thoroughbreds had 256kb and the Bartons had 512kb and the extra cache was
the main reason for the performance boost.

If you have $100 to spend then a better CPU would give your system a decent
boost but I would personally save up and do the mobo/cpu/ram upgrade.

(as for the other 2 posts - anyone who fries a CPU only has themself to
blame NOT the CPU for being ignorant of proper system cooling and operating
temperatures. also any current mobo has both SATA and IDE ports because
there are still plenty of IDE drives around.

Sleepy wrote:


[snip]

> (as for the other 2 posts - anyone who fries a CPU only has themself
> to blame NOT the CPU for being ignorant of proper system cooling and
> operating temperatures.

I totally agree and nearly posted the same thing. I live in New Zealand, it
gets plenty hot in summer yet I've safely run an XP1800+ (T'bredB) at 2.2GHz
and 1.775V vcore without the temp going over 65°C under full load on the
hottest day.

Then again, I'm not totally ignorant about CPU/case cooling.
--
Shaun.