CPU motherboard socket number?

[TheStuntman]

what does the socket number mean??? Does it matter?? I have a socket A i think i don't really know does that mean i can only support socket A CPU's? cuz i am looking to upgrade. The onboard chipset videocard blows hard so i wanna either get a vid card for the agp slot or just get a new motherboard with a good chipset.

[Winged 2.0]

You hit it right on the head. The sockets must match. Also, a very important thing is to make sure the motherboard supports the core used in the CPU you are purchasing.

Example:
I bought a P4 processor, socket N. Everything appeared to match up but apparently not cause it wouldn't work when I installed it. The problem? It was a Presscott-core P4 CPU and my motherboard would only support Northwood-core P4 CPUs.

:\

[TheStuntman]

You hit it right on the head. The sockets must match. Also, a very important thing is to make sure the motherboard supports the core used in the CPU you are purchasing.

Example:
I bought a P4 processor, socket N. Everything appeared to match up but apparently not cause it wouldn't work when I installed it. The problem? It was a Presscott-core P4 CPU and my motherboard would only support Northwood-core P4 CPUs.

:\

Okay i think my socket number is 462 so i can only get athlons that are 462 sockets?

[malice2501]

Easy way to find out if you dont have your documentation is to look on newegg. Find out what your motherboard is, then run a search for it. They will give you all the tech specs you need including supported chipsets.

Also, you may want to go ahead and upgrade you motherboard. Chances are if your processor sucks, so does your MoBo. Dont forget to look at things like the front side bus(FSB) speed. A processor running at 3GHz with a 167Mhz FSB is gonna piss you off with its redundancy.

Okay i think my socket number is 462 so i can only get athlons that are 462 sockets?

yes. And depending on how much you are looking to spend, you may also want to go ahead and get a 64bit athlon. The FSB is 800-1000 MHz, and the processors are relatively cheap now. Hope this helps.

[sniperrfl1011]

Okay i think my socket number is 462 so i can only get athlons that are 462 sockets?

and if i remember correctly, the socket462's are the same thing as socketAs

[Lead Head]

yes socket 462=Socket A , so that means AMD Durons, Athlons , or semprons

[polobunny]

Example:
I bought a P4 processor, socket N. Everything appeared to match up but apparently not cause it wouldn't work when I installed it. The problem? It was a Presscott-core P4 CPU and my motherboard would only support Northwood-core P4 CPUs.

:\

Ouch, those things hurt. Weren't there any bios upgrade available or something?

As said, Socket A = Socket 462
If you're lucky, you might be able to find an Athlon (core Barton) 2800+ with 266mhz fsb. Howerver, depending on the CPU you have right now it might not be a great upgrade.
Athlon 64 are only available in 754 and 939 socket. (Yeah tweaked out Athlon 64 aka Opterons are available in 940...)
So like malice said, you might want to upgrade your mobo, if you don't want to spend much be sure the RAM is the same type (DDR 266-333 or 400).

[Das98]

If I remember right, the fastest processor released for socket A was the XP3400+(which I don't think are in production anymore with AMD I believe replacing XP processors in general with semprons), so if you want anything faster than a 3400+ you'll need a new motherboard. If you can afford it, you might want to look at an Athlon 64 X2 processor(which is 939 a pin socket) with a manchester core like this one, 64 bit support, SSE3, dual core, one of the better deals out there IMHO if you can afford it.

Semprons are basically just budget Athlon XPs that are designed to compete with celerons, you don't want one of those.

[sniperrfl1011]

Also, there are new opterons that are for socket939. I've heard many people have managed to overclock them up to 3ghz just on air. Those would be a good bet if you were upgrading.

If you want to stay with socketA, i'd recommend buying a barton mobile 2500+ or something, and overclocking it like mad. The mobile bartons are known to be crazy overclockers, and may offer you the best speed on a socket A.

[polobunny]

Also, there are new opterons that are for socket939. I've heard many people have managed to overclock them up to 3ghz just on air. Those would be a good bet if you were upgrading.

If you want to stay with socketA, i'd recommend buying a barton mobile 2500+ or something, and overclocking it like mad. The mobile bartons are known to be crazy overclockers, and may offer you the best speed on a socket A.

They are 940, not 939. There is no opteron on 939. It's the same socket, with 1 more pin though... If we just knew which one, maybe cutting it would do the trick

I'm probably sure he won't be able to find anything else then a barton 2800+ OR a barton 3200+. There's nothing available anywhere in our providers stock for 3400+ or even mobile ones (except thurions, not sure about how you type that). Semprons on socket A just stopped being available like a month ago, now we can only get socket 754 Semprons "64", which is the same crap. Actually they're not THAT bad, it's not like you had a Celeron or an old Duron, but they're not the best performer either.

Opterons are fairly expensive, and personnally if you don't want to change your video card i'd go with an Asus A8V (not that I like Asus much, but you won't find any board with AGP8X that has a socket 939 and decent specs elsewhere) and an AMD Athlon 64 3200+. Something like 250$ US worth i'd say.

Edit: DUH, just re-read your post, you want a new vid card! Ok, it's going to be pricey but it's worth it.
Asus A8N-E (nforce 4 chipset, awesome as always) ~ 110$ US
Nvidia 6600GT 128mb DDR3 on PCI-express from eVGA, Leadtek, Gigabyte or Jaton (just the cards I had good experience with, recommendations ya know) ~ 150$ US
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ ~ 155$ US
Total: ~ 415$ US

[sniperrfl1011]

They are 940, not 939. There is no opteron on 939. It's the same socket, with 1 more pin though... If we just knew which one, maybe cutting it would do the trick

I'm probably sure he won't be able to find anything else then a barton 2800+ OR a barton 3200+. There's nothing available anywhere in our providers stock for 3400+ or even mobile ones (except thurions, not sure about how you type that). Semprons on socket A just stopped being available like a month ago, now we can only get socket 754 Semprons "64", which is the same crap. Actually they're not THAT bad, it's not like you had a Celeron or an old Duron, but they're not the best performer either.

Opterons are fairly expensive, and personnally if you don't want to change your video card i'd go with an Asus A8V (not that I like Asus much, but you won't find any board with AGP8X that has a socket 939 and decent specs elsewhere) and an AMD Athlon 64 3200+. Something like 250$ US worth i'd say.

Edit: DUH, just re-read your post, you want a new vid card! Ok, it's going to be pricey but it's worth it.
Asus A8N-E (nforce 4 chipset, awesome as always) ~ 110$ US
Nvidia 6600GT 128mb DDR3 on PCI-express from eVGA, Leadtek, Gigabyte or Jaton (just the cards I had good experience with, recommendations ya know) ~ 150$ US
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ ~ 155$ US
Total: ~ 415$ US

http://forums.anandtech.com/messagev...readid=1711047

PWNED!

They're suppsoed to OC like mad even on air and stock. People get at least 2.5ghz from 1.8ghz, sometimes as high as 3ghz

[TheStuntman]

well right now i have a AMD ATHLON XP 2500+ on a biostar Motherboard that can support up to 3200+. I have 512 MB DDR400 (PCI3200) RAM although it's at 384 with my shared onboard chipset video card which is a piece of crap (Geforce 4MX with no pixel or vertex shading so ican't pl ay cool as games like battlefront 2). So i asked a couple of friends and you guys if it's worth replaceing a motherboard upgradign processor get a little more ram for 300 dollars or just getting an agp video card. Oh yea 1 more thing what does FSB do? i think my motherboard can handle 400mhz FSB cuz it says it on the box and my CPU is at 166mhz..soo is that weak, bad, good?

[sniperrfl1011]

well, 166fsb @ ddr = 333, so you're only a little under your motherboard's max. That means you can either OC your processor right now to 400mhz (if the processor can take it), or get a new processor that operates at 400fsb.

Depending on exactly how much performance you need, and what future games you plan on playing before upgrading again, that will determine whether to upgrade everything now or just a video card.

[polobunny]

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/...9_9003,00.html
I have yet to find somewhere on AMD site where they talk about 939 opterons...
How am I supposed to know it if even the official sites doesn't have info about it.

Honestly I think people are just writing 939 for opterons 940...Because I cannot find any detailed documentation about the 939 opterons as opposed to the 940 opterons... I might not be so pwned...

Or 940 opeterons are just a misnaming thing, because I counted the pins (the one not there, not the one that are there ) and they ARE 939 opterons from the pics I can get from the anandtech forums. God, where will i find the truth to settle it down!

[sniperrfl1011]

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/...9_9003,00.html
I have yet to find somewhere on AMD site where they talk about 939 opterons...
How am I supposed to know it if even the official sites doesn't have info about it.

Honestly I think people are just writing 939 for opterons 940...Because I cannot find any detailed documentation about the 939 opterons as opposed to the 940 opterons... I might not be so pwned...

Or 940 opeterons are just a misnaming thing, because I counted the pins (the one not there, not the one that are there ) and they ARE 939 opterons from the pics I can get from the anandtech forums. God, where will i find the truth to settle it down!

well...the fact that if you go into "general hardware" section of anandtech and read some of the "my new rig" threads, you'll see that over 25 people have already purchased socket939 opterons and socket939 mobos, AND not one has complained that it didn't work together

I'm not sure exactly when they started shipping 939 opterons, but it was recently. Plus, AMD's "official site" looks like it could have been made by a 5th grader.