AMD64 x2-4400 Dual Core CPU

10:40.15 - Wednesday 24th August 2005 (Link to This Entry)

£359 inc VAT & Delivery from xtsit.com

Finally got my CPU upgrade after dithering over it for so long over which route to take. Gone is the Winchester-cored AMD64-3000 and in it's place is the Dual 2.2Ghz AMD64 x2-4400. In my rush to install the wee beastie I neglected to take any pics, but you can find those elsewhere on the web, complete with in-depth reviews.

After flashing my Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939 mainboard with the latest F11 BIOS, the CPU was a simple drop-in replacement. Many modern boards should support this new CPU out of the box, but if they don't a quick reflash should be all that is required.

Upgrading to Dual-Core CPU on Windows 2000
One thing of note is that if you have Windows 2000 installed (as I have) and you upgrade from a single CPU to a dual-core unit, the second core will not be discovered by default. To get around this you must activate the second core manually by doing the following:

Right-click on My Computer and select Properties
Click on the Hardware tab and then on Device Manager
Open the Computer branch and note if it's ACPI or non-ACPI
Double-click the entry under Computer to open it.
Click the Driver tab, then Update Driver and Next
Select Display a list... and then Next
You should see a list of drivers. DO NOT change from ACPI to non-ACPI, but select the Multiprocessor PC for your computer type.
Next/OK everything until you have to reboot.

Once that's all done you'll find that Windows Task Manager (see image, right) is subtly different, showing graphs and meters for two CPUs instead of one. Your machine should now fly along, and CPU-intensive software should no longer slow your machine to a crawl, even if it isn't multi-threaded since only one CPU will be under load, leaving the other to keep things ticking along nicely.

Big thanks to the guys at xtsit.com for getting the CPU to me so quickly. It arrived by next-day delivery and came with a free Akasa AK856 cooler into the bargain. They also happened to be the cheapest on Froogle for this speed processor. If you're at all interested, give them a click.

Micro-Update:
eBuyer are selling the 4200 for £20 MORE than I paid, and that's without the free heatsink/fan unit included.