I just wondered if anyone could help me with this compatibility issue. I have an Abit KT7-RAID motherboard, and in the manual (which I'm afraid I've mislaid...) I think it said that the fastest processor speed it could deal with was around 1GHz (perhaps it was 1.1GHz.. ?). I'm wondering if this was just because that was the fastest compatible (Socket-A) motherboard around at the time, of whether I can put a faster processor in - apart from anything else, the slower ones are getting harder to come by. Another point is whether the FSB speed is the determining factor? I found a website somewhere which said that the KT7-RAID was compatible with 200 FSB; so if I find a Socket-A processor with this FSB, does that mean it's definitely compatible?

If it's a KT7 and not the KT7A, a flash to the last BIOS should allow 200 FSB Athlon CPU's up to 1.4 GHz, and Duron Processors up to 950 MHz. No Athlon XP processors or processors running on 266 FSB.

Thanks for the quick response. I was also wondering if you - or anyone else - can explain the difference between "Morgan" and "Spitfire" Duron chips, as they seem to allow different levels of upgrade. To make matters worse, online retailers don't seem to specify which type they are selling.

Generally, the Durons that are rated at 1.1 GHz and above should be Morgans since I don't think that the Spitfires were produced at those higher clocks. I don't know about the lower clocked Durons. The main difference between the two is a change done to the processor core (like when the Athlon moved from the Tbird to Palomino). I don't know too much about the Morgan Durons, but I think they were released some time after the release of the initial Palomino Athlons. I suppose that the Morgan has some of the core optimizations that the Palominos got (ie - cache optimizations and SSE which make the AthlonXP's feel faster than similarly clocked Tbirds). I think the Morgans have SSE turned off, but WCPID has an option under Tweaks that supposedly turns it on. The Morgans continue to carry the same amount of cache as the Spitfires. I believe that I did read somewhere that a 1 GHz Morgan was able to match a 1.1 Tbird which I would suppose to be a result of the optimizations done to the core. Hope this helps.

morgan core durons starts at 1.0 GHz. 950 Mhz and below is spitfire

Duron 1300 with Morgan core should work on KT7-RAID. Some ppl also have luck with Athlon XP. More info at: http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=ebabbf0242bbb38b9ab4605e94222a35&threadid=158672