Processor Upgrade Question

[Nvidia fan boy]

I agree. Yes it would be cheaper to get the 3200+ but when you jump form 32bit to 64bit and dual channel DDR its like dropping your shorts. I went from a 2600+OC'd to 2.3ghz to whats in my sig and i thought it was a dream! I recommend getting a 3500+ 939 so that you can upgrade the chip w/ that mobo. socket 754 wont be upgrading anymore and it wont have support for dual channel ram. Also answering your original question, a jump from a 2500+ to either chip(3000+ or 3200+) is a good jump because of the fsb plus a big heat drop. I recomend the 939 option though because you can upgrade for the future and you will see a big boost in speed. plus when you go to a 64 bit and dual channel well you will just have to see for yourself. W/ the stock heat, no the line isnt all the same. Each processer jump has a diff amount of copper in the middle of the stock heating. The 3200+ has the most and alot more than a 2500+ if it has any at all. for now though if you are deffinately gonna get a new chip then i recomend getting a Thermaltake Xasier edition Volcano 11 and OC'ing you cpu to 2.2ghz. Trust me w/ that heatspreader you wont fry your chip cause i did the same thing!!

 

[psydesign]

Nvidia fan boy it says in your sig that you have two gig ram. i was told that windows only takes 1.2 or 1.5 gigs of ram?? please inform me if i was told a bunch of horse hair or what thanks

 

[madmonk888]

while i would recommend the 64 like the rest of the people here ( much much faster than the XP, just tested one yesterday) for 20 dollars extra id get the 3200.. keep in mind tho .. if you plan on making more money soon .. get the 3000 and wait till you upgrade... because 20 dollars is not that much extra... but also .. the boost from the 3000-3200 is also not that much extra.. but every little bit helps if youre a gamer.. soo ..if you plan on saving another 500 bucks soon for a computer... get the 3000 now .. or wait all together... if not then get the 3200...

psydesign: i have had 2 gigs in my PC and windows worked just fine and i noticed a gigantic boost of speed.. and motherboard supported it, however i didnt check to see if windows posted 2 gigs as running memory... though i have checked to see if it posted 1.5 gigs a month later.. and it did ... so i know for sure it supports 1.5 ... and im betting it supports 2 also..

 

[MadMan2k]

I think windows XP supports 4GB of RAM. Maybe not home edition, though.

 

[The Merlin]

Thanks for the reply TheMerlin. Would I notice a difference from the 2500+ I have now, and if so, is it anything worth upgrading to? Also, do you know if AMD packages the same retail heatsink and fan for the entire Athlon XP line? The reason I'm asking is that I already have the heatsink and fan that came with my 2500 when I bought it retail.

If your not willing to OC then yes

Going AMD64 would be faster, but your looking at spending twice what you are just upgrading the CPU