SOLVED AMD LABELING

Hi;

I just bought an 850 athlon and I want to make sure it is the "new type" athlon. What I ordered was a "Thunderbird 850"

Here is the label on top of the processor.

A0850AMT3B
AFFA00401GPAW
1999

Is this a thunderbird Athlon "C".
Is is the .18 micron?
Is it 200 MHz?
Is it a "Thunderbird"?

I have looked at the amd website (and even tomshardware) and there is no mention of these types of letters.

Sorry if this has been discussed before, I am brand new to this forum......
Thanks for your help.

It's not a "C", the "C"'s are 1GHZ and up, they use the 266MHZ bus. Yuors is the 200MHZ bus proc, but............... all you need is a mobo with the KT133A chipset and then unlock the processor, and you can run it at the 266 fsb too. You should be able to hit 1Gig without too much trouble, just make sure the cooling is good and you should be golden.

I bought ASUS V7V133 KT133 board so I guess thats cool. So you don't think this is an old chip
(.25 micron)? I noticed the date was 1999 so that is one reason I am asking....
Thanks.

BTW this forum is pretty decent !!

If you look at the second line that starts with AFFA, the next four numbers are the week and year that the chip was made, yours is 0040, that means week 40 of 2000. Don't worry, they stopped using the .25 micro process a while ago, yours is .18. The 1999 you see is the year that AMD copyrighted or trademarked the Athlon name, all Athlons have it. Another thing to look at is the core color. If its blueish in color it will probably OC better that if its greenish in color. The different colors represent where the chip was made(blue=Germany, green=Texas). As far as the mobo goes, you say it has the KT133 chipset, this one usually won't do more than120MHZ fsb, you may want to consider a new board with the KT133A chipset, it's the newer revision of that chipset and supports the 133MHZ fsb. You will see 133 in your bios, but more that likely, if its a KT133, the comp won't POST at that speed. That's alright though, you will still get some good results using the multiplier to OC. Hope this helps a little.


P.S. I can't remeber if you said whether or nat you have PC133 ram or not, if you don't, I would recommend some, it can really speed things up.

I have the KT133A chipset which I guess is 200/266 MHz. Thanks for the label info!

I am in the process (just starting) to build my box.
This is what I have bought (trailing edge of bleeding technology)

MB asus A7V133A KT133A
VIDEO ASUS V7700 32mb geforce deluxe (with glasses :^)
CPU thunderbird 850 socket A - green/gray
HD IBM ATA/100 45GB 7200 rpm
CD-RW HP 12 x 8 x 32
SOUND Creative sound blaster value
MEM 256 PCC133 32 x 63 CL2
CASE generic full tower, 300W

I haven't bought heat sink yet.
I was going to buy either GlobalWin FOP32
or
ALPHA PAL 6035

Do you have a particular preference?

I was thinking of buying Swiftech MC370 but I didn't want to shell out $50.


Thanks

Fiz (Apr 04, 2001 06:13 p.m.):
up.

Click to expand...

I like the Globalwins myself. I haven't seen a bad thing about them as yet and I have read a ton of reviews on them. I would recommend the FOP 38 or the WBK. The WBK is alittle bigger than the FOP 38 and from what I have read it cools alittle better. That couple of degrees could be the difference between stable and crashing all the time. I want to get the WBK I figure that way when I upgrade it will be able to handle it. You have great ram(222), that should really kick some butt, when you get up there in the fsb, you may have to set it to cas 3 though as it can cause lock ups if its set real high at cas 2, but you wil just have to give it a shot and check it out. I don't know if you know how to unlock the processor or not, to do it all you have to do is connect the L1 bridges. Be real careful though, they are teenie little things. You can use a pencil if you want, but they have to be redone all the time and that gets to be a pain. I used a rear window defogger repair kit, it comes woth conductive paint in it, all you have to do is grab yourself a magnifying glass and a pin, then dip the pin into the paint, close the bridges and you are on your way to a great OC!!! Looking at the Hardware you are using I would say you have a killer system on the way, the only thing I am wary of is the powersupply. To get the higher speeds you may need a better one, either a 300W AMD approved one, or a generic 400 or 500W. I hope all works out for you.