Dual P3 1ghz processors

[quinterro]

After running an old P3-600 system for a while I went to eBay looking for cheap upgrades.

An auction for two matchine P3 1ghz slot 1 processors was found for about $17 including shipping. While I only needed one processor, it was cheaper than the auctions I saw for one processor.

If only I had a dual processor slot 1 motherboard.... :lol:

 

[paws]

Good score.

If only I had a dual processor slot 1 motherboard.... :lol:

Tyan made some good ones, I think.

 

[quinterro]

After looking at prices for dual slot 1 motherboards that can handle 1ghz processors I'll stay with what I have.

Socket A motherboards can be purchased cheaply and I have several chips for those.

 

[quinterro]

They have arrived and work great.

The heatsinks on them may be large enough to run passively but I didn't want to take a chance just yet.

 

[TylerEss]

I've got some Supermicro P6-DBS boards that are great dual-slot-1 boards, but they only officially support 100MHz FSB

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Some 1 GHz chips were 100 MHz bus.

But they have to be boards that support processors faster than 600 MHz.

The long and short of it:

At 450 and 500 MHz, Intel made just one 'line' of P3s. "Katmai" core, 100 MHz front side bus. Over 500 MHz, there were three cores; at two bus speeds. Your motherboard needs to support both the core, and the bus speed. The 133 MHz bus came around, and Intel made Katmai core chips at 533 and 600 MHz for that bus. (They also made 550 and 600 MHz for the 100 MHz bus.) Then came the "Coppermine" core, which had processors for both the 100 and 133 MHz bus, at speeds from 533 MHz to 1.1 GHz. For the 100 MHz bus, the 'main' line ran every 50 MHz from 550 to 900 MHz, then with a jump to 1 GHz, and an ultra-rare 1.1 GHz chip that was socket 370 only. (900 MHz was also socket 370-only.)

Although if your board's BIOS supports the later "Tualatin" processors, and you have a proper socket-370-to-slot-1 converter (commonly called a "slotket", the fastest P3 you can put in there would be the server-oriented "Pentium III-S 1.4 GHz". When run on a 100 MHz bus, it "only" runs at 1050 MHz, but it has twice the cache of the earlier Coppermine, and runs cooler.