I'm a little out of the loop as far as processors go. I bought my current system a while back and it's a classic slot A (as I believe it's called) Athlon 600. I'm looking at upgrading now and find myself really confused over the whole classic slot A, Thunderbird and Duron thing.
Basically what I've come across is that the 3 are definately NOT interchangable. I have an ABIT KA7 motherboard, and it's supposed to take up to 1ghz in the classic slot A style. So I started looking around and it seems really hard to find the classic slot A processors. When I do find them, they're hard core expensive. Why is that? Aren't the Thunderbirds and Duron's better? I know that the Thunderbird has more on-chip memory than the classic slot A, and I'd figure the Duron is the same way.
Can anyone give me a quick rundown on these three types of processors, and their ranking as far as cost and speed/features go. Thanks...
Well the NEW THUNDERBIRD processors and DURON processors use a SOCKET A, rather than your current SLOT A. Yes, the socket A processors are faster than slot A processors. Slot A is old technology. SLOT A processors are currently out of production, and won't be made anymore. As time goes on, these SLOT A processors will get harder to find and more expensive.
I'm sure you can find a SLOT A to SOCKET A converter, although I'm not sure they exist.
Your KA7 can take a T-Bird slot A version up to 800 mhz. A number of people have had success with that combo. Luckily you can find them on Pricewatch.com for around $60. It would be about as fast as a 850mhz classic athlon. The KX-133 seems to have timing problems beyond 800mhz with the T-Bird. Might be a worth while upgrade for you to try. I have a KA7 myself but still with a classic Athlon. I also I have a T-Bird computer as well.
Thanks for the help everyone. I've got a better understanding of what's going on now. I did check e-bay and caught a few classic slot A processors for between $80 and $130.
I might go ahead and upgrade to a 850 or 950mhz, but at that point I'm stuck with the max my motherboard can go. Might as well tack on the extra bucks to get a new motherboard. Although even if I do get a new one just so I have upgradability, by the time I'm ready to upgrade something like this will have happened again and motherboards will only support biomechanical hardware or some crap like that. =) I guess that's the way it goes though.
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