[Rome09]

Hi there, I have an MSI K7N2 motherboard and I'm looking into buying an AMD Athlon 3200 CPU, I just want to make sure that the CPU is compatible with the motherboard.
Additionally, how good of a CPU could i get that would be compatible with my motherboard?

Thanks for the help guys!

*edit* I should add that my K7N2 is the one with the box cover that has a motorcycle on it, not sure which one that is, and the motherboard is also RED in color, its not the DELTA II, thanks!

Edited by Rome09, 08 July 2005 - 10:49 PM.

[Advertisements]

OK I think i found what type of motherboard i have, an nforce2... as seen here:
http://www.pcstats.c...?articleID=1317

[Rome09]

OK I think i found what type of motherboard i have, an nforce2... as seen here:
http://www.pcstats.c...?articleID=1317

[Rome09]

Heh it seems like im answering my own questions
I think my motherboard supports only socket a, as found here:
http://www.cluboc.ne...ards/msi/k7n2l/

Does that mean that I cant use socket 939 or 754 processors? Would appreciate the answer to this, thanks!
*edit* and would my motherboard be compatible with the AMD Barton Athlon XP 3200+? I think this one is the latest CPU released which is compatible with my motherboard.


Thanks again!

Edited by Rome09, 08 July 2005 - 11:10 PM.

[warriorscot]

Pretty much socket A was the bartons so that would be your best bet just make sure is socket A you are buying and not socket B although im still to see a socket B motherboard weird because you used to be able to buy cpus for them but noone sold the boards.
Socket A cpus are getting harder to source these days at decent prices, mind you i havent looked in a while.

[Rome09]

OK, I still need to know 1 very important thing-
now that I know my motherboard is Socket A(for CPU's), I need to know what the max FSB is that I should get my CPU at? What's the most my motherboard can handle? Is it 333? 400? or less? This is really important for me know, thanks!

Also I'm confused about the whole 2700 DDR and 3200 DDR ram, is this related to how what kind of CPU I should get?(333 or 400 FSB). If this imformation is helpful: I also just recently bought a 1g stick of ram at 400 FSB. Please let me know! Thanks!

Edited by Rome09, 09 July 2005 - 02:40 PM.

[seanshaffer23]

Here is all the information I could find about your motherboard:

• Supports DDR 266/333/400 (PC2100/2700/3200)
• FSB 200/266/333
• 4X, 8X AGP
• Integrated Ethernet 10/100 LAN
• Live Update, PC Alert, i-Speeder

CPU
• Supports Socket A for AMD® Athlon™/Athlon™ XP/Duron™ processors @FSB 100/133/166
• Supports 600MHz up to Athlon™ XP 2700+ processor or higher


Chipset
nVIDIA® nForce2 SPP Chipset
• Supports DDR200/266/333/400
• Supports external AGP 4X/8X

nVIDIA® nForce2 MCP Chipset
• AC97 Interface supporting up to two concurrent codecs
• Ultra ATA133 for the fastest hard disk throughput
• USB 2.0 EHCI/1.1 OHCI controller


FSB
• 100/133/166(200/266/333)MHz clocks are supported.


Main Memory
• Supports six memory banks using three 184-pin DDR DIMMs
• Supports up to 3GB PC3200/2700/2100/1600 DDR SDRAMs
• Supports both 64-bit and 128-bit DDR SDRAM
Note: nForce2 does NOT supports x4 memory device. 1GB can be made by other density of dram chip such as x 8, x16.


Slots
• One AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) 1.5V 4X/8X slot
• Five 32-bit PCI bus slots (support 3.3v/5v PCI bus interface)
• One ACR (Advanced Communication Riser) slot


On-board IDE
• An IDE controller on the MCP2/MCP2-T chipset provides IDE HDD/CDROM with PIO, Bus Master and Ultra DMA133/100/66 operation modes
• Can connect up to four IDE devices.


On-Board Peripherals
• One floppy port that supports two FDD with 360KB, 720KB,1.44MB and 2.88MB
• 1 serial port
• 1 parallel port supports SPP/EPP/ECP mode
• 3 audio ports in vertical
• 1 Bluetooth pin header (Optional)
• 6 USB ports (Rear * 4/ Front * 2)
• 1 RJ-45 jack (Optional)


Audio
• Realtek ALC650 6-channel audio
- Dolby Digital 5.1 format (with MCP2-T option)


Network
Chipset integrated 10/100 Base-T Ethernet/Fast Ethernet

BIOS
• The mainboard BIOS provides "Plug & Play" BIOS which detects the peripheral devices and expansion cards of the board automatically.
• The mainboard provides a Desktop Management Interface (DMI) function which records your mainboard specifications.


Dimensions
30.5 cm(L) x 23 cm(W) ATX Form Factor

Mounting
6 mounting holes


Hope this helps!!

Edited by seanshaffer23, 10 July 2005 - 09:03 AM.

[Rome09]

OK, knowing this, i have 2 questions-
1) can my cpu support a 512 stick of DDR memory at PC3200(kingstone ram) and 1g stick of DDR memory also at PC3200(Pqi)? Note that one's Pqi and one's kingstone, is that alright?

2) I am getting an AMD Athlon XP 2700+(after doing a lot of research I found that this was the best bang for the buck), I wanted to know if i could overclock it t 166 FSB. Logically I should be able to, but I just need to be sure because this morning i tried to overclock my older Athlon 2000+ to 166 FSB and it didn't happen, I had to put my CPU back to safemode(100mhz) manually, through moving a pin(which took me a while to figure out). THanks for the help!

[seanshaffer23]

I don't know about the overclocking part but for the RAM, using two different brands shouldn't hurt the computer one bit. You may get an error message when satrting the computer up but this is because the CMOS is adjusting its setting for the RAM.