Hi, I am looking to do a "mini" upgrade of my second computer and am looking to keep the motherboard and other components, just upgrade the processor if possible. I have a decent video card and RAM (256mb and 1gig of RAM) so do not want to upgrade them.

The motherboard is an ASUS P4S533-x, and uses socket 478 processors.

My first question is do all socket 478 processors work, or do I have to double check in the motherboard manual for specific ones?

Second question is how high do the socket 478 processors go to? I have seen 3.0Ghz, and one 3.2 but I was curious if there was anything better than that?

After all that, any ideas on where to find an older processor like this in Canada? I've been having a hard time finding anything that might work.

And no, I don't want to upgrade anything else, since then I will have to replace MB, RAM and CPU at a minimum. That is too much for me right now.

Thanks for any advice!

It's not really worth it to upgrade the processor in a socket 478 system. It's fairly outdated by this point in time.

That being said, I'll still give you the advice you want besides that. Go to www.cpuid.com and download and unzip CPU-Z. Go to the "Motherboard" tab and tell us what chipset your motherboard has.

Thanks, I appreciate the honesty..it is basically that I don't want to throw too much money at something that really isn't worth the upgrade. The processor is the oldest part of it though (along with mobo)

Anyway, chipset is SiS 645DX rev. 01

Well, it looks like any socket 478 CPU with a 533Mhz FSB would work. The highest would be a 3.06Ghz Northwood core. I don't know if the 800Mhz FSB Northwoods would just drop their FSB and still work or not, perhaps someone here knows if that will work with that chipset. I highly doubt it would support a Prescott.

Either way, you're probably going to need a BIOS update for a newer processor. As I said before, though...this isn't worth it.

edit - It seems THG did a review of that chipset vs. Intel's, and it came out on top:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2002/0 [...] index.html

ajfink is right....according to ASUS' website, the fastest CPU your board will support is the P4 3.06.

P4S533-X CPU Support List

These are hard to find nowadays, and are probably still fairly expensive. GL

ajfink is right....according to ASUS' website, the fastest CPU your board will support is the P4 3.06.

P4S533-X CPU Support List

These are hard to find nowadays, and are probably still fairly expensive. GL

They are, well outside what it would be worth in terms of performance. I have one, but I got it for free from a friend who said the computer was "broken." Checked the BIOS upon startup, and bam...that little...um...gem?

No Prescotts, no 800FSB's, only 533 bus Northwoods. And since there are 533 bus Prescotts you'll have to know the difference when buying something.

This is great information, thanks so much! I don't know how you guys find some of these lists, so much of this info is buried and my searches brought up very little.

Appreciate it.

Experience, probably.