upgrading asus P4V8X-MX

[g2c]

Hello,
I have a box with mobo asus P4V8X-MX populated with intel p4 1.6GHz, 256 KB cache in socket 478 and 1GB of two 512MB sticks of Kingston PN KVR400X64C3A/512 I presume 64M*8Byte per stick

From asus site it seems possible to upgrade the CPU to a 800MHz fsb. For instance, I was thinking of a 3.2G, 800M with 1MB cache, Does it make sens?

And if so, what would be the recommended memory in terms of speed? should it be a 800MHz one? In terms of capacity I'd like to increase to 2GB

Will this require to play with thee bios?

... And if it's not too much asking, where would you recommend to buy the cpu ($26 on eBay) and ram?

MANY thanks in advance for your time

 

[Old Thrashbarg]

Well, a 3.2ghz P4 should work fine, and would definitely be a significant upgrade from an old 1.6 Willamette, but whether the upgrade makes sense... that's questionable. The fact of the matter is, even the highest-end P4 is still crap by modern standards, and it doesn't help matters by running it on such a slow chipset.

There's also the consideration of memory... the recommended memory in terms of speed is 400mhz DDR1, because that's all that board will support. (And even then, it'll only run at 333.) The 800mhz RAM you found is DDR2, and won't work on your motherboard. The thing is, though, DDR1 is rather expensive for what you get, around $80 for 2GB.

So when you count the $26 CPU and $80 RAM, you're looking at pouring over $100 into a system that's still pretty weak. You can get something much better for about $10 more (including RAM).

 

[g2c]

Thanks,
I guess I'll just change the processor for $26 and stay with my current 1GB memory. Do you think I'll have to play with the bios?

 

[Old Thrashbarg]

It should automatically recognize the new CPU without issue.

One other thing to consider before you make the purchase, though... does the new CPU come with a heatsink? There's a good chance that the one that came with the 1.6ghz chip won't be sufficient for the hotter Prescott P4.

 

[g2c]

Good news (plug and play) and bad news: No, it's a used part sold as is, no heat sink, no fan

 

[g2c]

So finally i proceeded. Bought a 3.2GHz P4 with 1MB cache for $20 and a Spire heat sink for $18 on eBay. I had hard time dismounting the old heat sink and finally chose to cut its clips with a heavy duty cutter rather than risking to damage the plastic base. The cpu had two pins bent but i could straighten them w/o damage. The performance improvement is appreciable.

Thanks for your help