CPU Upgrade for A7V8X

[pcpaz]

I'm looking to upgrade my current Athlon XP 2000+ on my Asus A7V8X mobo. What's the fastest CPU that this board can take?

Also what's a Thoroughbred CPU?

[InsertNameHere]

Hi pcpaz,

Firstly, regarding your first question.

You can generally find this information (along with other specifications for the motherboard) on the manufacturer’s website. In this case the url is: http://www.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=A7V8X&langs=01. It says that the board supports either an Athlon XP, Athlon or Duron processor rated up to 2.4GHz+.

Regarding your second question.

‘Thoroughbred’ is the codename for an AMD processor. The first Athlon XP processors (codenamed ‘Palomino’) were manufactured using a 0.18 micron process. They ran at clock speeds from 1.33 Ghz (1500+) to 1.73 Ghz (2100+). The first ‘Thoroughbred’ processors that were released were simply a 0.13 micron shrink of the ‘Palomino’ core. These were rated from 1.47Ghz (1700+) up to 1.8Ghz (2200+). However, these initial versions proved troublesome (particularly with regards to the amount of heat they produced) and so AMD reworked the core and released the ‘Thoroughbred B’ processors. These are clocked from 1.47Ghz (1700+) to 2.17Ghz (2700+).

With the exception of the 2600+ and 2700+ versions (which all run on a 333Mhz front-side bus (FSB)), all of the other processors I’ve mentioned run on a 266Mhz FSB. Looking at the motherboard, it appears it should support any one of these processors.

Hope that helps,

Alex

[flibb]

Same board as I have, am currently running an XP2500 Barton 333 fsb. Check for a sticker on the south bridge saying 333, if its got that you can run the 333 processors and RAM as long as your BIOS is up to date.
Am currently using 2x512mb of PC3200 Geil which seems to be happy.
Good luck
Flibb

[JohnS]

I've got this board too and it runs quite happily at a 333FSB so any processor except the latest 3200 on a 400 fsb should be fine.