SO I get a few minor upgrades for christmas

[EZ_awarsoca]

I have a Biostar MB with an athalon xp 1800 on it. the MB hold a 2600. I have 768MB PC2100 Ram and a Geforce 3 64 MB card. ATI 9600 Pro is otw. Will upgrading to the 2600 be worth it?

[Mithrilhall]

Yes...IMO.

[Ruccus]

AMD makes/made two 2600+ processor; one clocked to 2.13Ghz and on a 133mhz (266mhz double pumped) fsb, and one clocked to 1.9Ghz and on a 166mhz (333mhz double pumped) fsb.

My guess is that your motherboard won't support the currently available AthlonXP 2600+ (the one on a 166mhz fsb). The old Thoroughbred 2600+ may still be available in stores, but you would have to make sure it's the correct one.

[Krimzan]

Sweet brother of Jebus! I bow to Ruccus considering @#%$ I wouldn't have thought of in a million years...

Damn man...

[Ruccus]

With regards to upgrading, there are two ways to go; you can either upgrade the processor, or upgrade the motherboard so that in the future your upgrade path can go further. To be honest, it's currently kind of a transitional period for AMD products, with the socket A being phased out and socket 754 temporarily showing up, to then be replaced by socket 939 in 2004. If you can make due with what you have for 6 months or so, you can use the money saved now on upgrading the motherboard and processor later.

Looking at pricewatch, the T-bred 2600+ sells for around $100 OEM (meaning no heatsink). Instead, you might want to get something like the retail T-bred 2400+ for $82 (at newegg.com) which includes a heatsink. Another option is to just overclock the 1800+ (if your motherboard supports the basic overclocking features); since you're considering a new processor anyway, you don't have much to lose (if you fry the processor, just go ahead and buy the new processor you were going to in the first place). Maybe you can try to see if the 1800+ (stock clock of 1.53Ghz) can get up to the 2000+ to 2200+ speeds (1.67 to 1.8Ghz), or even up to 2400+ speeds (2Ghz).

You'd have to check whether your processor is locked, and if so use one of the methods of unlocking the processor's multiplier. My golden rule of overclocking is "Don't overclock what you're not willing to replace should you break it", but since you want to replace the processor the rule is moot (though fried processors will occassionally take the motherboard with them, so it's not absolutely without a degree of risk).

[EZ_awarsoca]

Ruccus is the font of knowledge! I discovered the two 2600 processors. The one i could use was $150 for OEM, $175 for retail. I opted for the 2400+ for $82. Between the new processor and the new video card, I'm going to be hvaing fun <G>. LOL as we type, a buddy of mine just got some 420w cases in his store off an auction site, it looks like i might be moving my whole system.
Thanks for all the words of advice