Help (off topic)

I'm thinking of updating my old motherboard, and I have a couple of
questions:

1. The little manual that came with the board says thet it has a socket-A
processor socket for an AMD K7 processor and will support Athlon processors
between 650 MHz and 1.4 MHz with a FSB of 200 MHz or 266 MHz. In another
place the manual talks about a socket-462 processor. When I look for AMD
processors I don't see any K7 processors. Do they go by another name? Are
they obsolete? Is this mobo worth updating?

2. I also want to upgrade the RAM. The little manual says that I can use
184 pin 2.5v unbuffered 133 MHz DDR SDRAM DIMM modules. When I look for
DDR RAM I see stuff like pc3200 and pc3700 and so forth. Where do I look
for 133 MHz DDR RAM?

I apologize for this off topic post, but I didn't know where else to turn.
Thanks in advance, all helpful responses will be appreciated.

"pilgrim" <kenguard20-> wrote in message
news...
> I'm thinking of updating my old motherboard, and I have a couple of
> questions:
>
> 1. The little manual that came with the board says thet it has a socket-A
> processor socket for an AMD K7 processor and will support Athlon
processors
> between 650 MHz and 1.4 MHz with a FSB of 200 MHz or 266 MHz. In another
> place the manual talks about a socket-462 processor. When I look for AMD
> processors I don't see any K7 processors. Do they go by another name?
Are
> they obsolete? Is this mobo worth updating?
>
> 2. I also want to upgrade the RAM. The little manual says that I can use
> 184 pin 2.5v unbuffered 133 MHz DDR SDRAM DIMM modules. When I look for
> DDR RAM I see stuff like pc3200 and pc3700 and so forth. Where do I look
> for 133 MHz DDR RAM?
>
> I apologize for this off topic post, but I didn't know where else to turn.
> Thanks in advance, all helpful responses will be appreciated.

133Mhz DDR ram is labelled as PC2100, 166MHz as PC2700 and 200MHz as PC3200.
AMD dont call their processors by their K7 and K8 designations very often.
K7 is athlon/XP processors and K8 is Athlon64 processors. Yes, update the
m/b, get an abit NF7 or NF7-S if you need SATS and RAID.

On Tue, 27 Jul 2004 15:15:47 -0500, pilgrim wrote:

> 1. The little manual that came with the board says thet it has a socket-A
> processor socket for an AMD K7 processor and will support Athlon processors
> between 650 MHz and 1.4 MHz with a FSB of 200 MHz or 266 MHz. In another
> place the manual talks about a socket-462 processor. When I look for AMD
> processors I don't see any K7 processors. Do they go by another name? Are
> they obsolete? Is this mobo worth updating?
>
You've got a soket A (462pin) board. It will take Athlon/Duron 2 bit
processors (designated K7, but not advertised as such). If you would have
given the make and model of the board people could be more specific with
their help. Forget what models the manual says it will run. It's old hat
and will run the newer models.

> 2. I also want to upgrade the RAM. The little manual says that I can
> use 184 pin 2.5v unbuffered 133 MHz DDR SDRAM DIMM modules. When I look
> for DDR RAM I see stuff like pc3200 and pc3700 and so forth. Where do I
> look for 133 MHz DDR RAM?
>
Because the numbers are bigger (and i guess they think it looks better)
they market it by the bandwidth the module is capable of, Basically,
PC2100 is 133MHz, PC2700, 166MHz, and so on. For the DDR value, just
double the clock number. IOW's PPC2100 is rated as DDR266. Another caution
here. And again I don't know why the morons do this, but you'll see ram
listed as 400MHz, when in fact it's 200MHz DDR400. You can always use
faster ram thean the board supports, and I would buy the fastest you can
find with about the same price range. IOW's you can yse PC3200 ram (200
MHz) in your board, but the board won't run it that fast, since it;'s top
clock speed is 133MHz (and maybe a little more overclocking it).

See link below. it should help.

--
Abit KT7-Raid (KT133) Tbred B core CPU @2400MHz (24x100FSB)
http://mysite.verizon.net/res0exft/cpu.htm