With a mcp61pm-am motherboard, is it possible to use dual core processors as adv

[JoshBaity]

right now i've got an athlon 3800+ running at 2.4ghz 4 ghz of ddr2 (max supported in 32 bit from what i know) and need to upgrade as cheap as possible. will an athlon x2 4000+ running at 2.1ghz per core make a nice difference while running HD vid? I'm using an ati HD 5770 card (825 core, 1225 mem). The card does nice, but i need the extra "oomph" from a better cpu. just wondering if the 4000 x2 is a plug and play with this motherboard. 500w power supply, stock cooling on the cpu.

 

[Emerald]

It seems that the MOBO can take any AMD Athlon 64 x2 as long the long as it uses Socket AM2. I have seen MOBO/CPU combos on Ebay all the way up to an AMD Athlon 64 x2 6000 which is running at 2.9ghz.

 

[JoshBaity]

when switching nothing more than the cpu, what should I look forward to when I reboot? A bios screen not recognizing the processor? or a safe moded windows vista looking to repair itself? I've got enough power for the 4000+ and read somewhere else here about possible overheats or bugs due to the mobo not supporting high watt cpu's... anyone here super familiar with this mobo? I'm using a 500w antec psu and am really looking to get this upgrade done prior to the launch of ffxi to make for a playable system.

thanks again

 

[JoshBaity]

i meant ffxiv 😛 this current setup runs ffxi like a hotrod.

 

[megamanx00]

Yes, the X2 will make a nice difference when running HD vid, but you should go with something with a higher clock speed. After all, the old X2 CPUs are running rather cheap so you may as well get the best one your motherboard will support.

 

[JoshBaity]

that's the question heheh... how far can i push it? i've seen that the x2 6000+ is at 3.0 ghz, but you can overclock the 5200 to the same top speed as the 6000... which is around 3.7ghz if i'm not mistaken.

the more input the better. just got off the phone with a techie bud and he said it's pretty much plug and play with all AM2 socket processors, so long as I have enough pwr and bios updated.

 

[JoshBaity]

Best answer selected by JoshBaity.