Tualatin P3-S 1266MHz

I have a TUSL-2 Asus MB and I'm considering a cpu upgrade qith a 1266MHz
P3-S Tualatin with 512Kb cache (about $250).
Is it worth, or is better buying a new MB+CPU+DDR RAM?

Thanks.
Eddy

On Fri, 26 Sep 2003 12:13:49 +0200, "Eddy" wrote:

I have a TUSL-2 Asus MB and I'm considering a cpu upgrade qith a 1266MHz
P3-S Tualatin with 512Kb cache (about $250).
Is it worth, or is better buying a new MB+CPU+DDR RAM?

Thanks.
Eddy


That specific Tualatin CPU is a bad upgrade. It is overpriced and the
extra L2 cache would "usually" be of less benefit on a PC than a
higher-clocked CPU. A good low-cost Tualatin upgrade would be a
Tualatin Celeron 1.4GHz, is $46 USD but presumably a bit more there.
You don't mention what CPU the system is currently running so even
that may not be much of an upgrade relative to newer CPUs.

The far better long-term upgrade would instead be a new MB, CPU,
memory.


Dave

That specific Tualatin CPU is a bad upgrade. It is overpriced and the
extra L2 cache would "usually" be of less benefit on a PC than a
higher-clocked CPU. A good low-cost Tualatin upgrade would be a
Tualatin Celeron 1.4GHz, is $46 USD but presumably a bit more there.
You don't mention what CPU the system is currently running so even
that may not be much of an upgrade relative to newer CPUs.

The far better long-term upgrade would instead be a new MB, CPU,
memory.


Dave



Thank you very much for your clear answer, currently I am using a Celeron
1.0 GHz so I think that I will go for a total upgrade.
I agree with you that the P3-S is overpriced, it was a temptation: few
dollars less and I would have done a CPU-only upgrade for the first time in
my life better luck next time.

....going to find a good and hopefully cheap Barton mainboard, any hint?

You can do better on the price. I bought a 1.26 Ghz P3 earlier this year from
http://www.pagecomputers.com/cgi-bin...esultskw3.html
It was $178 US including a heatsink and fan.
The 512 Kb cache will help performance a lot with relatively slow, e.g. 133 Mhz memory. With faster DDR memory the 128 Kb cache of the Celeron should be enough.

Eddy wrote:

That specific Tualatin CPU is a bad upgrade. It is overpriced and the
extra L2 cache would "usually" be of less benefit on a PC than a
higher-clocked CPU. A good low-cost Tualatin upgrade would be a
Tualatin Celeron 1.4GHz, is $46 USD but presumably a bit more there.
You don't mention what CPU the system is currently running so even
that may not be much of an upgrade relative to newer CPUs.

The far better long-term upgrade would instead be a new MB, CPU,
memory.


Dave



Thank you very much for your clear answer, currently I am using a Celeron
1.0 GHz so I think that I will go for a total upgrade.
I agree with you that the P3-S is overpriced, it was a temptation: few
dollars less and I would have done a CPU-only upgrade for the first time in
my life better luck next time.

...going to find a good and hopefully cheap Barton mainboard, any hint?

--
Mike Walsh
West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S.A.

The 1.2 PIII will give at least a 40 percent improvement over the 1 gig
celeron and they go for less than $100

The 512 cache PIIIs are for servers not desktops. Not even sure it will work
in a TUSL-2

Lane




"Eddy" wrote in message
...
I have a TUSL-2 Asus MB and I'm considering a cpu upgrade qith a 1266MHz
P3-S Tualatin with 512Kb cache (about $250).
Is it worth, or is better buying a new MB+CPU+DDR RAM?

Thanks.
Eddy