cheap and cheerful..

[caashford]

i have had my pc for nearly three years now and have no complains with it at all. it does exactly what i want it to but have since decided to give it a bit of an upgrade.
i currently have the msi-6178 motherboard running a 466mhz celeron chip. i have looked on the msi website which says that i can upgrade it to a celeron 900, or a p3 850... but i dont understand, i thought that p3's were different chips altogther? it is a socket 370 board and i know that i can get a 900 mhz chip off ebay for $30 and a 64mb pci (no agp slot) graphics card for $40. will i need a new heatsink as well? as im not overclocking it will the current one be enough?

Cheers
Chris

 

[Teq]

Up to 1200 mhz, Celeron and PIII both sat on socket 370 motherboards. A while back Intel re-did the Celeron onto the P4 format 478 board, probably as a pre-cursor to dropping PIII production altogether.

Basically the s370 celerons were PIIIs with less chache and fewer enhancements. They performed well enough but the PIII was definately the better chip.

Given the choices you've described...I'd go for the PIII 850 with a good aftermarket cooler.



<b>(</b>It ain't better if it don't work.<b>)</b>