How do you find out

clessoulis · Post by **clessoulis** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 7:03 pm

The maxium cpu that your PC can take?
What mother board you have?

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 7:09 pm

CPU-Z can help you on the mobo part. Then you can find out from the manufacturers site on the fastest CPU your mobo can take (usually that will require a BIOS flash). However, if you bought your comp from like Dell or something, the max CPU to be used on it is probably not that much faster.

AntoineWG · Post by **AntoineWG** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 7:11 pm

Research. Google for CPU-Z. It'll tell you tons about your motherboard, including the manufacturer and chipset. From there you can look up the specs on both and determine what your board can handle.

EDIT:
Even Dull PC's have some limited upgradability. One of my coworkers was able to upgrade his aging 1.6 GHz system with a 2.3 GHz (I think) Northwood core CPU, but it topped out at 2.1 GHz on his board due to FSB/multiplier limitations. He upgraded to a GeForce FX series AGP video card and added another half gig of RAM and he's actually getting decent framerates in Counterstrike Source. Not bad for under $200 to hold him over until he can justify building a new Core2 system.

Joe Camacho · Post by **Joe Camacho** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 7:26 pm

Read the manual.

clessoulis · Post by **clessoulis** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 7:48 pm

Ok when you over clock a CPU is is possable to over clock it pass the maxium supported cpu speed of your mother board?

If you get a cpu thats at a higher speed than what your motherboard supports is there anyway to actually get it to run at that speed?

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 7:55 pm

clessoulis wrote:Ok when you over clock a CPU is is possable to over clock it pass the maxium supported cpu speed of your mother board?

Yes, assuming you the mobo has the options that allow you to do that.

If you get a cpu thats at a higher speed than what your motherboard supports is there anyway to actually get it to run at that speed?

Yes, but that is not guarenteed. You are only limited to the overclocking controls on your mobo and even then, it is still limited to the mobo for being able to handle a speed above what is known to work successfully.

kevman · Post by **kevman** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 7:57 pm

Sometimes, but don't rely on that. Especially not nowadays.

It depends on the situation, but that would require increasing the FSB (if you motherboard can go beyond its rated) which would stress out other parts and cause problems.

Check to make sure that there isn't a BIOS update for higher-rated CPUs.

clessoulis · Post by **clessoulis** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 8:05 pm

It seems like the highest its rated is 850mhz but the difference in cost between a 1ghz p3 slot 1 and a 850mhz p3 slot 1 is like a dollar.

Jipcy · Post by **Jipcy** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 8:37 pm

clessoulis wrote:It seems like the highest its rated is 850mhz but the difference in cost between a 1ghz p3 slot 1 and a 850mhz p3 slot 1 is like a dollar.

If your motherboard/processor support multiplier changes, you could just get the 1ghz processor, and if it doesn't work at stock speed, lower the multiplier until the processor's frequency is close to 850hz.

AntoineWG · Post by **AntoineWG** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 9:44 pm

You're probably better off with the 1 GHz processor anyways. IIRC, the 1 GHz P3 had a copper core, not aluminum.

And you generally can't push a processor past the motherboard's highest FSB setting times the highest multiplier. Some motherboards have theses settings as fixed frequencies and ratios via motherboard jumpers or dip switches, usully in 33 MHz and .5x increments, others have them in the BIOS and offer more flexibility. Many processors have the mulitpliers locked, so you may be limited in the range of multipliers you can use. If you have an OEM system, it's more than likely fixed jumpers for something that old.

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 9:47 pm

AntoineWG wrote:You're probably better off with the 1 GHz processor anyways. IIRC, the 1 GHz P3 had a copper core, not aluminum.

And you generally can't push a processor past the motherboard's highest FSB setting times the highest multiplier. Some motherboards have theses settings as fixed frequencies and ratios via motherboard jumpers or dip switches, usully in 33 MHz and .5x increments, others have them in the BIOS and offer more flexibility. Many processors have the mulitpliers locked, so you may be limited in the range of multipliers you can use. If you have an OEM system, it's more than likely fixed jumpers for something that old.

It would be fortunate to have the jumper info on the board... which was fairly common on older systems (though, it wasn't always there).

Magus` · Post by **Magus`** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 4:54 am

Let me point out something on overclocking. Certain CPU and GPUs are very overclockable. I'm talking taking it from 2 GHZ to some insane level like 3 GHZ on air cooling.

However, I'd say most CPUs are average overclockers, which is something like a 400-500 MHZ boost. Now, this is nothing to sneeze at and it will increase performance, but I've found that usually it's not worth the extra heat and wear on your parts.

The point is, if you want to overclock, that's fine but make sure to get parts that are well known for being overclockable. I'm sure you can find that much out with a little bit of research.