StickyMicky

my pc is getting a bit long in the tooth now and is crying out for a new mobo and cpu

its a clocked 1.2ghz athlon thunderbird running 512mb, i had another 256mb but that went a bit pete tong so i removed it.

ive been checking out the prices of sum of the newer athlon chips and stuff and they seam like there pretty reasonable, but ive noticed this new 64bit malaraky

if i upgrade now to a xp3000 or sumthing will it be obsolete in a few years (i mean not like a normal progression thing like whats happend with my 1.2)

i can still run stuff fairly decent, but will all this 64bit stuff mean any older machines wont run them at all?

im sure sumbody said there doing new versions of wuindows just for the new cpus

when this mobo and cpu is put out of its main job in the household its going to be fitted to a MAME cabinet ive got he plans/parts for

recomended actions?

StickyMicky

ohh i will need sum DDR memory as well wont I

Scooby7

Im not an expert on motherboards and cpu's but windows xp currently only supports 32bit and i have read that at least to start with the 64bit version of windows will only be available with packaged pc's and not go out on sale seperatley but normally you get the internet company's who sell them as oem versions.

I opted for a 2.4 pentium but i was trying to keep costs fairly low and not to go over the top.

hope someone can give you better idea of what mobo ect to buy such a large choice available can easily get overwhelming.

StickyMicky

ive just stumbled upon a athlon xp 2500

aparently there not locked, which means you can overclock them to xp3200 speeds

and there cheap

about £80ish on ebay with a good motherboard

this requires further investigation

mystic_magic

yer, they are the same multiplier as a 3200+, so even if u end up with a locked one it does not matter.

all u need to do is buy a mobo that is 200(400) mhz capable, like a nforce2 based board, and then get some PC3200(400mhz) ram and ya sorted... a decent cooler is needed too cos the 2500 @3200 will put out more heat than a normally clocked one, obviously.

simlar situation to my 2800 running at 3400 (not that they ever made an athlon (barton) 3400 in the end) speeds.. just changed the FSB.