seems like you have no sense of adventure...
Personally I have a reasonable sense of adventure. Perhaps it is not the most robust because it often involves calculating out ways of mitigating the damage should things not go well, but it is certainly there.
For example if it were me personally, I'd get the upgrade and at the same time be prepared to buy a new motherboard if the upgrade didn't work out. That way I can be daring and if successful, I saved money by not needing the new mobo. If I failed, the worst case is that I spend as much money as I had allocated originally. (Well, assuming that I don't blow anything up anyway. Heh heh.)
I just don't often make suggestions to people that reflect the same extremes that I might personally go to unless I'm 100% certain that the person I'm making a suggestion to is capable and willing to go to those extremes as well. Which is why I made the suggestion to just play it safe.
If your current cpu can run at 333mhz fsb then you will be able to run any 333mhz fsb cpu.
I'd love to agree with you, but I can't. AMD is often synonymous with 'budget'. As a result many AMD-based systems have motherboards with mediocre voltage regulators and other cut corners. (Admittedly, there are 'budget' Intel systems with the same problems, but those are far more rare.) And on top of that MSI is a company known for cutting corners on some products and having a rather poor quality assurance on others. Don't get me wrong, MSI's prices are usually worth that risk if you're willing to RMA and/or self-repair. I took that risk on my video card and it has payed off quite nicely.
But the point is that the pure power drain from the CPU alone might be enough of a reason that not <i>all</i> 333MHz FSB CPUs will run on it even though some of the lightweights do. And then again they might all work fine. The problem is that we don't know be cause we don't have assurance from the mobo manu. That makes it a wild-card.
Personally I'd give it a shot if it was a system for myself. (Though I'd play it safe if it was a system for a friend.) As a suggestion to someone else however, I suggest to play it safe until they express to me that they're willing to take that risk and fully understand the possibilities.
<pre><A HREF="http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20030905" target="_new"><font color=black>People don't understand how hard being a dark god can be. - Hastur</font color=black></A></pre><p>