Old intel PC upgrade

[Allan]

What is the fastest Celeron CPU and video card available for an old Abit BM6 motherboard?

Its a BX chipset. I was wondering if it will support an 800MHz Celeron and a Geforce 3 or Geforce 4 video card?

The BM6 is currently holding a Celeron 500 and a TNT2 card, and it needs to be upgraded (ONLY for games).

Thanks in advance!

[cloasters]

Aren't 800 Mhz Celly's from the Celeron 2 series? I think that they are. Unless Abit makes up to date BIOS upgrades available forever...

It's doubtful that the mainboard's VRM can provide less than 2 volts Core Voltage. It's possible that Celeron 2's can run on two volts, but I think they have to have less Vcc.

Maybe my memory isn't so great.

[Allan]

Yes, 800 MHz is a Celly2. But I've seen someone on the web having a Celly 2 600MHz overclocked to 900ish.

I'm actually even more interested if it is possible to put a Geforce 3 or 4 into one of these boards?

Particulary a GeForce3-TI200 or GeForce4-TI4200.

[cloasters]

This old of a mainboard will probably only handle AGP 2X. It may be a 3.3 volt AGP slot, too. If so, the GF3 and GF4 you detail may simply be too new for the maiinboard.

[Allan]

What is the best it would do for video then, you think? GeForce2 GTS?

[dod]

You can get the manual here.

http://www.abit-usa.com/downloads/manual/

I had a quick look and it says that it supports up to celeron 433, AGP2X 3.3V.

[cloasters]

Originally posted by Allan
What is the best it would do for video then, you think? GeForce2 GTS?

Sadly, this mainboard may not be able to run even a GF 256 Vidcard. On the Nvidia side of the fence, a TNT2 Ultra may be all she can take. Which was only ~10% behind the GF 256 in performance. They kicked the proverbial in their day. ATi? Sorry, don't know. Voodoo? Don't know if anything faster than a V3/2k - 3k can be run.

Then again, there are PCI versions of many Vidcards!

[Allan]

Originally posted by dod
You can get the manual here.

http://www.abit-usa.com/downloads/manual/

I had a quick look and it says that it supports up to celeron 433, AGP2X 3.3V.

THANKS, I couldn't find this when I was looking on their page. I must be blind. DOH! But at least it supports 2x AGP.

Originally posted by cloasters


Sadly, this mainboard may not be able to run even a GF 256 Vidcard. On the Nvidia side of the fence, a TNT2 Ultra may be all she can take. Which was only ~10% behind the GF 256 in performance. They kicked the proverbial in their day. ATi? Sorry, don't know. Voodoo? Don't know if anything faster than a V3/2k - 3k can be run.

Then again, there are PCI versions of many Vidcards!

There is already a TNT2 card in the computer. Actually, I have to upgrade 10 of these, all completely alike. I think I will try to persuade the people sitting on the money that they will need new motherboards and CPU's while we are at it.

Thanks both of you for your input.

[cloasters]

You're most welcome!

The TNT2 Ultra's were much better than plain old TNT2 Vidcards. They were also quite expensive!

[Allan]

Originally posted by cloasters


They were also quite expensive!

I should know, I had one! In the good old days of my Celly366.

Mmmmmm... TNT2 Ultra...

[S_Wilson]

I never used a BM6 but I used several other Abit "BX" boards along with a couple from Asus and Soyo. As a matter of fact I still have a couple of BX boards in use. During the course of using BX boards, I have used PII, PIII, Celeron and Celeron II's in these boards along with and up to Vodoo 5 and Geforce 2 GTS video cards. The Geforce 2 cards were able to run both 1.5V and 3.3V if I remember correctly. As a matter fact, I still have a Geforce 2 that I have used in BX boards and still use as a backup in my 845D boards which only support 1.5V cards. I try not to do that often but if the card did not support 1.5V the board would not boot. As far a Celeron 2's go, they are FCPGA and that board is probably a slot 1 so you will have to use a slocket any way. With the right slocket you can set the voltage on the slocket even if the board does not support that low of a voltage. As antiquated as they are, the BX still has some to offer and are still surprisingly compatible.

[S_Wilson]

Oops, just looked at the board and it socket 370 not slot 1, sorry. On the plus side if you look here you will find that bios update BM6QT brought support for the cBo Stepping Celeron 2 at 1.5V. If you look here it tells you that this board will never be able to support the cCo stepping Celeron 2 at 1.7V. So you can use any Celeron 2 as long as it is not 1.7V. You can look here and find the fastest cBo Celeron is 700Mhz (1.65V) and the fastest cBo at 1.5V is 600Mhz.

[Allan]

Thanks a lot S_Wilson. I didn't know that it would take a GF2 GTS card.

Sadly, as the mobo already has a Celeron 500 in it, I doubt an upgrade to celeron 600 would do much good.

Overclocking is a no-no in this case, we need the warranty 100% so that isn't an issue worth considering.

[Allan]

Actually, I will be upgrading 12 of these computers, all located at a youth school I work for.

I persuaded my boss to shell out for new mobo, cpu, ram, case and video card for all 12 machines.

I'm looking at this so far:
Boxed 1800+
ECS K7S5A
PC2700 256 MB
Cheap Q-tec 300W case
GF4-MX440SE (I know, I know. But the school is poor, this seems like the best video card for the money.)

Perhaps I'll swap the mobo and CPU with another ECS and a Celly1800 as stese computers need long time stabiliy. On the other hand they will mainly be used for gaming, so I figure 1800+ would be better... ack. Decisions, decisions.

The best part is I get paid to put these together and install Win98 and various games on them. And I might be able to get a 700 MHz Duron or a Celly500 system for dirt cheap = another folding box.

[Staz]

What about an nForce 2 chipset based mobo? Would that be cheaper than a mobo and vidcard combined?

I thought I saw an MSI nForce 2 board for about $110

[Allan]

Staz, I'll have to look into that. It looks like prices are about the same...

[S_Wilson]

If you need long term stability I would suggest a Celly tualitan based on the old PIII core. Use a board that has the 815EP chipset which will give you long term stability and game playing ability. I think the tualitans are up to 1.4Ghz and still pretty plentiful and cheap. That is what I would look at before a P4 Celly or Amd product.

I am not saying anything against AMD, they build a great product but you have to admit they have a propensity for crashing.

[cloasters]

Allan, there is a caveat if you wish to use a ECS K7S5A. They demand a good quality PS. A cheap PS, as comes with a cheap case, doesn't augur well.

Why not buy one of these cases? If a K7S5A gripes about the PS...

[Allan]

Actually, I was leaning more towards an ASUS A7V266-E I can get a good deal on here in Denmark. I still have Asus in higher regard than ECS when it comes to long term stability...

I put the K7S5A there because at the time I didn't notice how cheap the older Asus model actually is.

Thanks for the heads up anyway, Big C.

[funnyperson1]

glad you were able to convince them to upgrade ...Asus is good, and also remember, Celly1800s suck, i mean a celly tualatin 1.2 is a better choice than those imho, athlons are the best choice for price/performance