Upgrade Processor?

[Piolit]

Not sure if this is the right forum for this question, but since its directly related to rendering, I'll ask it here anyway.

 

If I wanted to upgrade my processor speed, could I buy a new chip and just pop it in to my existing motherboard, setup, etc. Considering it’s the same socket (939), would I have to reinstall windows, reformat hard drive, etc or will the new chip just run on the old setup after its physically installed. Also, I'm going form a single core Amd chip to a dual core.

 

 

 

 

 

-Piolit

[AJLynn]

You will need to check with your motherboard manufacturer to find out if the new CPU is compatible with the existing board. It may require a BIOS upgrade, and moving from single-core to dual may requirw additional cooling and power supply capacity. Assuming that all checks out, you should be able to swap the chip, install the CPU cooler and run Windows without a reinstall (but back up your data anyway, and be prepared in case it does require reinstall).

[Piolit]

Now what's the difference between the Opteron's and the 64 X2's? Could I use either on a socket 939. For pure processor power (ie: rendering), which do you recomend. Also I have DDR400, PC 3200, will this be fine with the dual core's.

[AJLynn]

Newegg's selection of 939 CPUs: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?N=2010340343+50001028+1051707439&Submit=ENE&SubCategory=343

 

Opterons are mostly useful when you want to use 2 of them, but that's not possible on a 939 board. Athlon64x2 is probably the way to go. RAM shouldn't be a problem.

[Greg Hess]

ALWAYS BACKUP CRITICAL DATA BEFORE HARDWARE UPGRADES!!!!

 

With that in mind, most cpu swaps are relatively painless...That is, if the rest of the system was overbuilt to support upgrades (as per AJ's comments).

 

I recently performed upgrades from 3500+ A64's to 4800+ X2's in the graphics lab at work. One board was an epox, the other was a chaintech. In both cases I had to flash the motherboard bios's PRIOR to swapping the cpu's to get proper dual core support (the boards are over a year or so old).

 

Other then that, the process consisted of removing the hsf (sometimes difficult depending on the type of paste used, and the last time it was removed...in my case, the AS3 on one of the hsf's had literarly turned solid, and made the hsf removal extremely difficult), putting the fresh cpu in, cleaning the hsf bottom and cpu surface with 100% alcohol, applying thermal paste, reinstalling the hsf, and booting the computer up.

 

XP detected the multicore cpu, installed a acpi multiprocessor kernel, and when restarted, worked fine, though at a greatly increased performance envelope.

 

ALWAYS BACKUP ALL CRITICAL DATA BEFORE HARDWARE UPGRADES!