Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Processor Upgrades
Since the 486, processor upgrades have been relatively easy for most systems. With the 486 and later
processors, Intel designed in the capability to upgrade by developing standard sockets that would take
a variety of processors. This trend has continued to the present, with most motherboards being
designed to handle a range of processors in the same family.
To maximize your motherboard, you can almost always upgrade to the fastest processor your
particular board will support. Because of the varieties of processor sockets and slots—not to mention
voltages, speeds, and other potential areas of incompatibility—you should consult with your
motherboard manufacturer to see whether a higher-speed processor will work in your board. Usually,
that can be determined by the type of socket or slot on the motherboard, but other things such as the
voltage regulator and BIOS can be deciding factors as well.
For example, if your motherboard supports Socket AM2+, you might be able to upgrade from a dual-
core Athlon X2 or quad-core processor in the Phenom II family, because they all can use the same
socket. Before purchasing a new CPU, you should verify that the motherboard has proper bus speed,
voltage settings, and ROM BIOS support for the new chip. Visit the motherboard or system
manufacturer's website to obtain the most up-to-date processor compatibility information and to
download BIOS updates that might be necessary.
Tip
If you are trying to upgrade the processor in a preassembled or retail store-bought system, you
might have few processor upgrade options using the BIOS provided by the system vendor. If
you can figure out who made the motherboard (and if it is not a proprietary unit), you might be
able to contact the motherboard manufacturer for a more updated BIOS that supports more
processors. You can also use the BIOSAgentPlus website (
http://biosagentplus.com
)
to scan
your computer, determine if a BIOS update is available, and download it.
Upgrading the processor can, in some cases, double the performance of a system. However, if you
already have the fastest processor that will fit a particular socket, you need to consider other
alternatives. In that case, you really should look into a complete motherboard change, which would
let you upgrade to one of the latest processors at the same time. If your chassis design is not
proprietary and your system uses an industry-standard ATX motherboard design, I normally
recommend changing the motherboard and processor together rather than trying to find an upgrade
processor that will work with your existing board. Keep in mind that new memory might also be
necessary.
Overclocking
Another form of processor upgrade is to set the processor speed to run faster than the rating on the
chip; this is called overclocking. In many cases, you can get away with a certain amount of
overclocking, because Intel, AMD, and others often build safety margins into their ratings. So, a chip
rated for, say, 3GHz might in fact run at 3.5GHz or more but instead be down-rated to allow for a
greater margin of reliability. By overclocking, you are using this margin and running the chip closer to
