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Abit TH7II processor upgrade

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Aurora40

Member
Joined
Jan 21, 2005
I built a system a little over 3 years ago for my mom with this mobo and a 1.5GHz P4 (Willamette I think?). It also has Samsung 800MHz 256MB RDRam.

She is considering upgrading the cpu and adding another 256MB to get a bit more lifespan from it.

From the bios release notes, it seems it'll only go to 2.4GHz 100x24. However, it sounds like it can run @133/533FSB without problems? If I got a 2.8B Prescott @533, would this work flawlessly? Or will it be hit or miss or possibly unstable? It's not worth it if it means the comp won't be rock solid. Can the AGP and PCI stay at 66/33 with a 133/533 FSB? Any other issues to consider?

Thanks for any feedback!

Also, when I looked at zipzoomfly for memory, they had 16-bit and 32-bit 800MHz rambus memory in 256MB sizes. What's the diff and how do I determine which is in there currently?

Thanks!
 
Is it a socket 478 motherboard, or a 423? If it's a 478, then it most likely would be a i850 chipset motherboard, which I know a bit about. My friend has a 850 motherboard on a Dell 8200, with PC800 RDRAM, it came stock with a 1.8 GHz Willamette, and when he changed it to a 2.4B Northwood, it underclocked it to 1.8 because it does not support the 533 MHz frontside bus. I'm not sure if all 850's are like this, but it's definatly something to be aware of.

Edit: I ran a google search on the mobo, after I posted. It is a socket 478 i850 motherboard, and doesn't officially support the 533 MHz fsb.
 
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The Unforgiven said:
Edit: I ran a google search on the mobo, after I posted. It is a socket 478 i850 motherboard, and doesn't officially support the 533 MHz fsb.

Right, it definitely doesn't officially support the 533MHz FSB. But I've heard of folks putting them in there with no probs. The memory would be run as 600MHz memory, thus running it at 800 with the overclock. If the PCI and AGP busses can be run at the stock speed, it seems this might work just fine.

The thing is, is a 2.4GHz upgrade, while not too shabby, isn't all that amazing. Something closer to 3.00 GHz would be nicer. Newegg does have a 2.8GHz 400FSB Northwood, but the mobo only supports up to a 24x multiplier... :(
 
This is a TH7II (socket 478) and not a TH7 (socket 423), right? I used to run a TH7II with a 2.66 533 CPU. If you have PC800 RAM, you'll need to set the memory to 300 instead of the default 400 (actually, just set it to auto before you pull the old CPU out). Lock (fix) the AGP/PCI to default 66/33 and it will run at 133 FSB just fine. The RDRAM is quite expensive and you'll need to get 2 sticks that match the ones that are already in it. You want the 16-bit RAM, the other won't work.
 
I'm still using my board with the 2.4 533 its been going for three years. Time to build a new unit though..Can't go too fancy cause I want to use my vid card and I need lpt and serial ports. I was thinking AS8 and 3.2 ghz. Any suggestions.

****
 
The very first rig I built myself is still running just fine. It's a P4 1.6A Northwood on a TH7II-R with 512MB (2x256) of Samsung RDRAM. It's been running at 140FSB (2.24GHz) from very shortly after I built it almost 3 years ago. It will soon be my son's rig. It's been my experience that the Samsung PC800 RDRAM overclocks very nicely: Mine has been set at 1:1 the whole time. IMHO, a 533 Prescott might be a bit more than this board could handle, but I would think most any 533 Northwood would work just fine. Your Samsung RDRAM very likely would handle 133FSB at 1:1. I'd suggest getting a nice 533 Northwood (I've thought about dropping in a P4 2.4B Northy), 2 more 128MB sticks of Samsung RDRAM &let her rip! Give it atry & let us know!
-Dave
 
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