The fasted CPU my MSI K7N420D MB BIOS will support is 2600/266.

I can find & purchase the Thoroughbred-B version 2600/266, but not the bigger 512k cache of the Barton core 2600/266 part unless you count the MP version.

Can a 2600/266 MP-Barton drop-in & work on my MSI KN420D?

I believe it's just a bigger on CPU cache and the nVidia chipset shouldn't need to know this. I suspect you're going to tell me the MP CPU expects a higher PCI bus speed to support PCI-X (66Mhz) or some such thing. But that's what I'm here to learn.

I currently have a 1500/266 now with 1GB/266 memory, and I wanted the best last ditch upgrade for my system which should delay my FX purchase long enough for the adoption cost to drop out of the insanity zone.

Thank you in advance.

The MP doesnt expect anything except some decent memory and a socket A slot, seeing as they came out over a year ago, when PCI-X hadnt even been ratified it wouldnt expect it. Basically all Athlons are built around the same packages for each speed bracket, so all 2600+'s are the same, which reduces costs, then AMD can unlock or lock certain parts of the chip to either sell it as an XP or MP.

If you put an MP into your board it will probably appear as an XP, but other than that it should work fine.

Jake

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Yes... it will work.

But I thought only the MP2800 was a Barton core.

I agree with your thinking, though -all the MS are 133Mhz FSB and the mobo won't see the larger cache size.


Peter

By your statement "won't see it", do you mean that the motherboard (chipset) won't care or that the extra cache can't be used because of recognition problems?

I don't think the CPU cache is loaded as addressable memory by the MB chipset, so I think the cache is transparent and will be used as a normal data pathway. The data can grow into a bigger stack and be statistically faster.

Too deep or am I close?

Walt

Apologies for my ambiguous statement.

I mean the mobo does not know or care about the cache, it can't see it and the CPU will work just fine using the whole cache.

The mobo will probably report a Barton MP 2800 as an XP 2600 (or something) i.e whatever the T'bred with that FSB and mult would have been.


Peter

pcy
Why? I think the MP2800+ will detect as.. Athlon MP 2800+ on a single-cpu motherboard. Why not?

There is a Athlon MP 2600+ Barton - OPN: 'AMSN2600DUT4C' it has a x15.0 multiplier and 133MHz FSB(like all MP's) and is clocked at 2GHz - same specs as an AXP 2400+ except for the additional L2-cache.

It will run on your mobo and it will prolly be detected as an Athlon MP since most mobos check for the presence of an 'MP-bit' to determine whether a CPU is a Athlon XP or MP, IIRC.
As for the full size of L2-cache being usable, i don't really know...but i suspect it will work.
Do make sure you update your BIOS to the latest version before upgrading the CPU.

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@ivan

QUOTE The fasted CPU my MSI K7N420D MB BIOS will support is 2600/266.

So in this case the mobo will not recognize the CPU as a Barton, and possibly not as an MP. It will report the CPU as the XP rating of whatever 133 Mhz FSB CPU would have had the same Mhz.


Peter

Ok Gentlemen, I've got the official answer I've been waiting for. All of the input that this forum has brought forward has been right on target though some were a little hard to follow.

The AMD tech support guru I talked to today has confirmed that the MP CPU will drop right in and work just dandy as any 2600/266 Barton core should even if the BIOS doesn't officially support it. The tech also bet it would report itself as an MP, but it could fall back to the XP identity. There should be NO issues with using this CPU at all. Also once the processor is in place I'll check it with the AMDCPUID.exe program. [AMD Processor Utilities ' ">http://www.amd.com/us-en/asset...utilities/amdcpuid.exe]

Together we reasoned that more people aren't pursuing this upgrade is because they don't know about it or it's seemingly not viable & finally the extra cost. For the ~$150 that I'll be spending on the CPU, some folks would rather double that & buy a new motherboard & CPU. But that doesn't consider the adoption cost of new faster memory either or the major hassle of reloading a hard drive. Meanwhile I'll also be saving my GAB/266 of memory too.

As I said before, this upgrade is going to allow me to wait a year or more until the 64 bit adoption costs drop. I'll write back with the results once I get it together.

I want to thank all of you for your input & support.

Walt