The choice of processors is greater today than it has ever been. Gigabyte processors from both Intel and AMD are almost within the price range of the rest of us. And, the processors from the 500 MHz range up are all good bets for upgrades or new machines. The technology utilized by both Intel and AMD to clock their latest processors has lead to a competitive frenzy that has moved the price down on processors making it almost impossible to keep from upgrading. The K6-2 400 MH AMD CPU I reviewed last year is not even being manufactured this year. It has been replaced by a new socket CPU, the Duron

• Duron runs in the 500 to 700 MHz range and is less than $100.00 cost
• AMD Duron CPUs, 600 to 700 MHz, range in wholesale price from $69.00 to $114.00
• AMD Athlon CPUs, 550 to 900 MHz, range in wholesale price from $84.00 to $295.00
• AMD Thunderbird CPUs, 750 MHz to 1 GHZ, range in wholesale price from $171.00 to $521.00

• Coppermine P3 CPUs, 600 to 933 MHz, range in wholesale price from $194.00 to 583.00
• original P3 500 to 600 MHz, from wholesale price $132.00 to $186.00
• Celeron CPUs, 433 to 533 MHz, range in wholesale price $87.00 to $101.00

Motherboards are a different story
The CPU manufacturers are designing their CPUs to their own motherboard APIs. There are two slot specifications. 

• Slot 1 motherboards will handle only Intel P2/3 CPUs
• Slot A motherboards will handle Athlon and Thunderbird CPUs
• Socket 370 motherboards handle Celeron and K6 CPUs
• Socket A motherboards handle Duron CPUs
  
  

I may have missed one or two motherboard specifications. Motherboard prices have risen as the technologies to meet the CPU demands have gotten more complex.


• Super 7 motherboard wholesale prices range from $79.00 to $93.00
• Socket 370 motherboard wholesale prices range from $83.00 to $155.00
• Duron/Thunderbird Slot/socket A combination motherboard wholesale prices range from $116.00 to $161.00
• Athlon motherboard wholesale prices range from $115.00 to $151.00. And, finally
• Slot 1 motherboard wholesale prices range from $76.00 to $198.00

Special consideration is needed in the case power supply as the higher end CPUs are installed. Athlon 650 MHz or above require 300 watt case power supplies for optimum performance. Care in the selection of the video card may also be a consideration. The other main consideration may be the case itself. The high performance motherboards are all ATX power supply connected. Older cases may have AX style power supplies. A new power supply may also be needed in the motherboard/CPU switch. The case may also need modification to handle the PS2 mouse and keyboard. All other I/O devices will probably work in the new computer. Most ATX motherboards have at least one ISA slot. If the sound and modem are both ISA slotted in the old machine, then one or the other may have to be replaced.

The 650/800 upgrade
My latest upgrade process has actually taken place in two computers. The first modification was to the computer that had been the AMD 400 MHz machine, a Windows 98 SE system. This change included a new Gigabyte motherboard and AMD Athlon 650 MHz CPU. The second planned modification was to the Test machine, a 500 MHz Celeron with integrated video and sound machine, I maintain at the Resource Center. This machine received a Asus Athlon motherboard and AMD 800 MHz CPU. Both changes were to be simple changes of the parts and restart the machines as if nothing had taken place. Yeah, right!

The 650 change was to involve simply removing the components from the 400 setup and replacing the motherboard and CPU with the new parts. The new parts consisted of the 650 MHz AMD Athlon CPU and a Gigabyte GA-71XE motherboard with the AMD 751/756 chipset, i.e., this motherboard was designed for the Athlon CPU series, complete with a Slot A for the CPU. The reminder of the components, I/O cards, memory, HDD, CD-ROM, FDD, and cabling would simply be returned to the system. Remember, the 400 unit was done just that way with no problems. All working right two times in a row was not to be.

The first problem was the Gigabyte motherboard. It would not take any BIOS changes. It reverted to the DEFAULT each time we attempted to change it. That motherboard was changed for another one. The BIOS worked on the new one. Then, all my Windows upgrades came home to roost. This machine had started life as a Windows 3.1 computer and had been continuously OS upgraded from that time to the present. Windows 3.xx to Windows 95 to Windows 98 attempting to run on the faster CPU caught up with the machine. Windows 98 would not run as installed. I needed to start running Windows 2000 Pro for training purposes, so I bit the bullet and installed W2K Pro on the machine after saving all data to my server. The machine purred like a cat. The applications all worked without problems. MS Office 2000 and WordPerfect Office both worked without any problems. And, the processing time was fast. The machine sometimes had to wait for the network to catch up. Most of the I/O devices seemed to work without problems. The new OS and machine adapted together. The OS picked up the NIC and I was connected to my network and router. The USR Courier modem worked perfectly.  196 MB of 100 MHz SDRAM coupled with 128 MB NT paging files provides all the processing memory one can ask for. There were no problems running the AMD Athlon 650 MHz CPU. I am using dual CPU fans designed for the Athlon CPUs. Adequate cooling is a must with these CPUs. The Gigabyte Users Manual was straightforward and fairly easy to read. It provided good directions and illustrations for the setup. All was right in the kingdom.

Until I attempted to install the drivers for my new HP CD-RW IDE drive and HP 5100 series parallel scanner. Now new unrelated OS problems raised their ugly heads. The drivers for the HP CD-RW drive were not compatible with W2K. The HP drivers, which work without problem in Windows 98, were not compatible with the NT method of operation that require no direct interface between I/O devices and the user. This set of problems have nothing to do with the computer it self, but with the lack of W2K legacy drivers to support the switch to W2K Pro. All in all, the AMD CPU and Gigabyte motherboard are stable and handle every requirement I place on the machine. None of the problems encountered were AMD related. And, except for the third-party hardware drivers, W2K is very stable. 650 MHz is fast.

The second computer, my test machine, received a new setup with the removal of its Celeron 500 MHz CPU and video/sound integrated motherboard. This machine is used for a wide host of test and evaluation issues. The integrated motherboard would not handle some of the events I placed on it. Integrated video is a problem with Linux.

With the opportunity to try the 800 MHz AMD CPU, I moved to a new ASUS Slot A fast bus motherboard. This system has removable HDD capability and will run any number of OS systems. The basic OS is Windows 98 SE. Using the removable HDD capability, I plan on maintaining NT 4.0 Workstation, Windows 2000 Pro, and Linux installed on separate HDDs. The system change included moving all I/O devices from the old motherboard to the new setup. One other change was made to this machine, as I plan on running some of the high resolution games on it, was to install a 32 MB high resolution video card. The Win 98 HDD started and ran the new setup including default BIOS settings without problems. A W2K Pro disk did not run on the new machine settings. W2K may require a complete new load to recognize the motherboard and new CPU settings. More effort is currently being expended in this effort. As of the writing, I have not tried Linux on this machine. I installed the prescribed dual CPU fan on this unit as well. The AMD 800 MHz CPU performed as specified. It is fast.

Athlon performance
One point must be made about the AMD CPUs. I had system alarms with the 650 machine until I replaced the 250 watt power supply with a 300 watt unit. I made that change in the 800 MHz unit up front and did not receive any of the system alarms. AMD Athlon CPUs above 600 MHz work better with 300 watt power supplies. After some discussion with other builders, I now specify 300 watt power supplies in all Athlon based systems.

The Athlon performance from both the 650 and 800 CPUs is visible. Both are fast. NT 4.0 WS, W2K Pro and Win 98 perform without problems on them. The application software programs run as well without glitches. I think that I can see the 650 machine have to wait as I move data on my 10BaseT network. I have to wait for files to load and unload. It probably time for me to move to a 100BaseT network. Tom T. Hall and I are probably right, there is no substitute for speed, faster is better.

One late note. I have installed my first AMD Duron Socket A CPU. It is fast, does not require a 300 watt power supply and is cheap too. The Duron is equivalent to the Intel Celeron CPU and range in speed 600 MHz to 700 MHz. The CPU must be matched to the motherboard, however. Socket A is not Socket 370, I think.

Conclusion
CPU speed has a great effect on communication speed. The faster the CPU processes the data, the faster the data is usable. Broadband communications connections can slow the processing down because of the mass of data at one time. Faster CPUs process that data faster. Fast is good!