Looking for a last upgrade to for a PC used mainly for office applications/music/video/internet.
Asrock K7S41 motherboard
what would you recommend?
New socket A processors seem thin on the ground, can get Duron 1800, Duron 1600 or Sempron 2800+ at reasonable prices.
My two other pcs are running Athlon XP 3200 (400 fsb) and Athlon XP 2800M (266 fsb). By comparison the Duron 1200 in my daughters machine seems a little slow.
Shaun

As with all PCs, proper configuration is crucial to best performance. The K7S41 is based on an SiS chipset, so it won't perform as good as a Via based or nForce2 based board. The Duron doesn't perform as well as a Sempron or Athlon XP because it only has 64k L2 cache, plus most only run at 100MHz(200FSB)...a few models run at 133MHz(266FSB). Athlon XPs have either 256k or 512k L2 & run at either 133MHz(266FSB), 166MHz(333FSB), or 200MHz(400FSB) depending on model. Semprons have 256k L2 & run at 166MHz(333FSB). In case you didn't know, socket A Semprons are nothing more than Athlon XPs that were given a new name & new perfomance rating system.

The BIOS settings need to be tweaked to get the most out of your hardware. For instance, you apparently have a 100MHz(200FSB) Duron paired up with PC3200/DDR400 RAM. That in itself is not a problem, but for best perfomance on ANY socket A system, the CPU:DRAM ratio should be 1:1. In other words, the PC3200 should be clocked down to 100MHz(DDR200) speed to match the FSB speed of the Duron. There are several other BIOS settings that should be addressed as well...simply loading 'defaults' is NOT the way to go.

Newegg recently had the Duron 1.8GHz Applebred on sale for $18 w/free shipping, but that deal is over...last time I looked, it wasn't even being offered anymore. I think the 1.6GHz is selling for $28.

StarMicro still has several AXP's available...you may wanna have a look there.

http://www.starmicro.net/SearchResu...