The CPU Two-Step

Thinking about some kind of upgrade soon?

Consider “renting” a Duron system.

This is what I mean:

If you already got the RAM (and PC100 is fine for this), and the rest of the system is up to snuff; they’re practically giving Durons away.

Between a Duron, a good KT133 board, and a heavy-duty heatsink, that shouldn’t run you more than $250. If you get one of these AKBA chips, you’ve got at least a decent shot at 1Ghz; probably pretty safe at 900Mhz.

That should hold you for at least a while.

Sometime early next year (say March), you can do one of the following:

You can replace just the processor with a TBird. At very worst, you should be able to pick up a current 1Ghz chip for something like $120 and get to 1.2Ghz. Or probably buy a current 1.2Ghz for not much more. Sell the Duron for $20-30, you’ve effectively rented it for $30-40 for six months, and you’ll save much more than that on the TBird.

There’s a good chance you’ll be able to buy a Palomino cheaply at that time. (Per Via Hardware, it’s supposed to be able to run on a KT133 board.)

You might decide to go whole hog, buy a Palomino/DDR system, and sell the Duron/KT133 system. Tough to see how the net cost on that would be more than $100.

Of course, you might just be perfectly happy with what you have. 🙂

Just an option to consider.

Email Ed


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