Upgrading a T-bird 900 to Duron 1.3?

batboy · Dec 5, 2002

I'm trying to help a buddy upgrade his system. He has an Abit socket A mobo (I think it's a KT7 RAID maybe) and a Thunderbird 900. He's not all that interested in overclocking much since his girlfriend's kid will be using this rig most of the time, but would like to install a cheapest and fastest CPU that will work, so it'll handle the newer games (he's upgrading the vid card too). The Thunderbird 1.4 is supposed to work ok, but they are really hard to find and cost $80+. Will a 1.3 Duran Morgan work instead? These are fairly inexpensive (less than $40) and I've heard they are good CPUs (overclockable too). This is how dumb I am with AMD CPUs, I don't even know if the Duron Morgan is a socket A or not.

eli · Dec 5, 2002

If the motherboard supports XP's with a bios flash, then the xp 1600 would be the price/performance choice. Only $55 at newegg. Otherwise a duron 1.3 is not a bad choice IMO. The Duron is socket A.

batboy · Dec 5, 2002

Hey thanks for the reply. As near as I can tell, his mobo is an early version of the KT7 and will only support up to a Thunderbird 1.4 even with the latest BIOS flash. The later mobo version 1.3 will allow the newer CPUs. So, you think a Duron 1.2 or 1.3 will work?

batboy · Dec 5, 2002

This article at Tom's Hardware don't look encouraging.

http://www17.tomshardware.com/cpu/01q3/010821/gigahertz-01.html

I'm so confused.

eli · Dec 5, 2002

Yeah, that doesn't look very promising. I haven't worked with ABIT, but that board looks like it won't support the newer Morgan core Durons. I would play it safe. Maybe a pencil trick and upping the multi would be the best option!

repo man11 · Dec 5, 2002

According to Paul's : http://www.sudhian.com/faqs.cfm/fid/2/fcid/16.sud
it will support a Duron 1200. Which probably isn't a Morgan core. My bet is it has the same problem as those boards have with Athlon XP CPU's.

quegyboe · Dec 5, 2002

it will support a Duron 1200. Which probably isn't a Morgan core.

All Duron's above 1Ghz are morgan.

I would just keep the Tbird and try to up the multi a little. If I remember correctly, the KT7 mobo is a KT133 mobo, so it only supports 200 FSB CPU's. Why not try to find a Tbird on Ebay or something?

juninjesus · Dec 5, 2002

KT133.... hmm
That motherboard does not support 133MHz FSB..
So it is better to use 100MHz FSB CPU such as Duron or Athlon 1400MHz...

However, Athlon 1400MHz is the fastest but price is not cheap..
Duron 1300MHz running cool.. not as hot as Athon Thunderbird..

They also support SSE.. Thunderbird doesn't

repo man11 · Dec 5, 2002

Well, that kind of muddies the waters. I wondered about that after reading more of the Tom's article after I posted, as the one in the article is a 1.0 gig Duron. It didn't seem likely that they would make a faster Duron on the old core. So that means that Paul is saying a 1200 Morgan Duron will work.

batboy · Dec 5, 2002

Thanks for Paul's link. There still seems to be a lot of confusing about what will and what won't work. I told my buddy to leave the T-Bird on there or upgrade the mobo and CPU both. He already has it unlocked using a conductive pen, but it barely can run 1 gig. Personally I don't think it's worth buying another CPU for no more than he'll gain, but he's really hot to do this.

quegyboe · Dec 5, 2002

If he's really gotta upgrade, tell him to get an XP1600+ and an ECS K7S5A. This mobo rules for the price, and with an XP1600+ from Newegg, he'll be set!

batboy · Dec 5, 2002

Thanks, I'll pass that info on. Hard to beat that bargain price.

Upgrading a T-bird 900 to Duron 1.3?

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