Need help finding cpu compatible w/ old motherboard

[ryan127]

Gave my cousin my old pc as I built a new one for myself 2 years ago. Its not a bad pc at all, had it for 10 years, its just really outdated nowadays. He plays wow perfectly fine, but he just got a new game (Empire: Total War) and the system passes all the minimum requirements except the cpu, (3.0GHz- his being 2.26GHz) he comes up a bit short and while he can technically "play", its not fun.

He came to me about it a few days ago and wants to know if he can upgrade to a 3.0, and I have no idea what cpu is compatible with that old motherboard or if its even worth it. I looked around online and cant seem to find any useful info.

If he can actually upgrade it to 3.0, will he see a noticeable improvement? Thought I'd come here and ask you guys.

System specs are all the info I can find on the pc itself:

Intel Desktop Board D850MV / D80EMV2 (IMMV21714131 AA A87951-402)

Pentium 4 CPU 2.26GHz

360w power supply

1GB Ram (Rambus)

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GS (AGP)

 

[loneninja]

I can't say with 100% certainty but it sounds like an old socket 478(at least I think that's what the socket before 775 was called)

I don't think they got the P4 up to 3.0Ghz on that old socket, even if they did moving up to a 3.0Ghz P4 wouldn't be much of an upgrade as its outdated as well. Plus matching the minimum requirements of a game will make it playable, but it still won't run it very well.

 

[Abyssalx]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116027

3.0GHz Pentium 4

Im pretty sure that mobo is socket 478 - so this cpu should work

 

[ryan127]

Yea its definitely a socket 478. I agree with you though, I dont think it will be much of an upgrade for him. But as abyssalx posted a link to newegg, its like $80.00, so maybe he might wanna try it out. Do you think he should get a new cpu cooler aswell if he goes for it? 3.0GHz run hot and his cpu is hot now as it is.

 

[Abyssalx]

It wont be an oh my god upgrade but he'll definately notice it. But do you really think it's worth sinking $80 into an old computer like that? You might want to think to maybe tell him to save up for a new computer. ~$300 can get you a better GPU, 4 GB of ram, Dual core 2.7ghz processor, new mb, decent psu. I just don't know if it's really a great decision to upgrade an old computer like that. But it's up to him.

 

[ryan127]

I told him, but he just turned 16 (bday money to spend) and hes really starting to get into computers so I figure let him experiment and mod the crap outta this old one so he can learn a little bit. Besides its fun seeing him play today's games on a decade old pc I made when I was his age. Thanks for your reply's.

 

[Abyssalx]

Thats actually a good idea. I'm 15, and I would have done that too, but I didn't have all of the parts of computers. So I built friends computers, then my own, and yeah. It's a good experience, building your first, and even messing around with one.

 

[Abyssalx]

ugh.. double post for some reason...

 

[RJR]

If he wants to take a little chance (it's got a DOA warranty) EBAY has P4 3.2 Ghz going for $25.00 with free shipping.

 

[ryan127]

Thanks I will check it out.

 

[gelde3001]

Just to be clear to the OP, it is S478 NORTHWOOD ONLY compatible. I think also its only 533mhz fsb so the best you can do on that board is the 3.06ghz 533fsb 512k cache cpu.

With that in mind a quick look on ebay suggests £20-30 GBP as a minimun price.

To be totally honest Id not bother upgrading the spu - although the 3.06 is HT enabled (hyperthreading) it wont help much if at all to this game honestly any p4 over 2.2ghz isnt far off each other so there is obv a bottleneck elswhere in the sys, and for my the immediate would be 1gb ram.

However with that said you wont get more rambus ram for anything worth your time - its very rare now and in sizes you would need even more so so game over there.

The final thing to suggest is simple - UPDATE NVIDIA AND INTEL DRIVERS...

www.intel.com
www.nvidia.com

The reason I say this is that with a 7800agp gfx card you will NEED the right drivers to cope with the game AND motherboard.

As with all the later AGP cards they all use a bridge chip that drivers can and do affect like with bios updates for cpuid or microcode.

My last last thing to say is that a second hand A64 with say 2gb and mobo / heatsink combo on ebay will never cost you more than £50-80 gpb and would (if you find an older nf3/4 or via based AGP s754 or special 939) give you a very potent gaming rig for most games but the very very latest.

Hope that lot helps you and tbh save and replace the guts......

 

[ryan127]

I ran a CPUZ (CPU ID) on the pc and it says it is a [socket 478 mPGA Northwood 2.26GHz 533MHz FSB]

So the Prescott at Newegg wont work right? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116027

I would need a Northwood like this one: http://www.pcprogress.com/product.asp?m1=pw&pid=INP4-800-300OEM

and still even then it wouldn't work cause its also 800MHz FSB, correct?

 

[Abyssalx]

The codename doesn't matter, but the FSB might.. Im not sure.

 

[zalphab]

Please Consider Abyssalx's idea.

Spend 200+300 usd on a second hand gamming PC... a bit less old. that will give you a boost for all the components in there...