CPUs

[mrikasu]

Post reviews of your Central Processing Unit Beasts here..

(actually, a new post would be preferable)

[mrikasu]

AMD AthlonXP 2500+

I bought this a few months ago for the princely sum of £60 from ebuyer but it has been one of my best buys so I thought I would tell you all how great it is.

The Box - technically it is one of those crazy plastic things you have to cut up

Always get the retail version of a processor when you buy rather than the OEM one for a few quid less. You get all these extras:
- A 3 year warranty (ready to void instantly)
- A heatsink and fan
- A nice little case sticker
- An ickle instruction booklet

The Techy Specs - technically they are technical specifications

Model: AMD Athlon XP 2500+
Core: Barton
Operating Frequency: 1.83GHz
FSB: 333MHz
Cache: L1/64K+64K; L2/512K
Voltage: 1.65V
Process: 0.13Micron
Socket: Socket A
Multimedia Instruction: MMX, SSE, 3DNOW!, 3DNOW!+

The Fun Bit

The reason I chose this one over say a 2400+ (which actually has a faster clock speed) was because it is the first (and therefore cheapest) of the later BArton chips rather than the earlier Thoroughbred chips. So it is a brand new architecture and is barely using its full power unlike the 2400+ which is squeezing everything out of the Thoroughbred.

It is well documented that these will easily overclock stably, with the standard included fan to a 3200+ which costs around 3 times the amount!

You simply go into the BIOS and increase the FSB to '200' from the 166 it is on and you have what is recognised by everything as a 3200+. Schweet for those of us on a tight budget.

The Bit Before the End

Basically, this thing can fly through most stuff you throw at it. It may not be near the fastest and I may have to go for a 64 soon but it offers great 'bang for your buck'. For £60 (probably less now) you can get what is effectively the fastest Athlon XP available. I have never had it slow down to a crawl and as long as you have enough RAM and a decent Graphics Card if you are gaming it should stay this way.

If you want speed on a budget you had probably already guessed you wanted an AMD but this is an even better way to get speed for cheap.

The Bit After the End

Overclocking can crap up your CPU so don't blame me etc....

[sirch]

Here is a review of the New intel Celeron processors (D series)

Intel celeron D processors:
Available in "Socket 478" and "LGA 775"

Reviewing: Intel Celeron 335 2.8Ghz "Socket 478" processors.

These new D processors are as fast as anything.
They have almost if not the same speed and quality as the Intel Pentium 4's!
They can take almost anything that is thrown at them and still remain at optimum performance. The one i have used is in a Dell 3000 series and is excellent.

If you buy the LGA 775 D processors they also have built in 64bit support!

So for peace of mind Buy Celeron D, You save loads of money for just the same item!

I rate these processors 5 stars.

[strawberry jam]

AMD Athlon 64 3700+

AMD Athlon 64 3700+

As the prices for CPUs have been radically cut, you can get this CPU for as little as ₤85.

As usual, the box contains instructions, the cpu and a sticker

Specifications:

Model: AMD Athlon 64 3700+
Core: San Diego
Operating Frequency: 2.2 GHz (Cool 'n' Quiet: 1.0 GHz)
FSB: 1GHz
Cache: L1: 128 KB; L2: 1024 KB
Voltage: Core: 1.5 V ; I/O: 3.3 V
Process: 90nm
Socket: Socket 939
Instruction Sets: MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, AMD64, Cool'n'Quiet, NX-Bit