rec.autos.simulators

I have a DELL XPS R450 (P2-450 CPU) which uses a slot1
obviously. Well I recently read on the DELL message board
about many XPS R owners upgrading to a socket 370 P3
chip and are running as high as 750mhz (so far). The key
is to get a slot1-socket 370 adapter. I found that most people
were having success with IWILL's slocket2 adapter. The cost
for this adapter is $25. Their page is below.

http://www.racesimcentral.net/

So I bought an IWILL slocket2 and a P3-600E (which
papadoc suggested to me) for $300 from
http://www.racesimcentral.net/
my existing MoBo and booted with no problems.

Now F1 2000 is running at 800x600 test sessions
at 25fps while races are a solid 18-19fps.

The beauty of this upgrade is that I can put any
socket 370 100mhz CPU into my computer and
it will work. So when the 800mhz price drops to
around $300 I will upgrade again :-) Also, the
IWILL should work in any slot1 MoBo with 100mhz
bus. It will support 133mhz also and the voltage
selection goes from 1.3v in .05v increments to
close to 5v I think. Anyway it seems like a much
cheaper upgrade to me than getting a new MoBo
and worth checking into.

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cisko [AT] ix [DOT] netcom [DOT] com

Md

-GaryR

On Tue, 02 May 2000 00:06:20 GMT, "Victor Chan"

Not quite I think. There are also adapters I believe which "fix" this
problem.

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cisko [AT] ix [DOT] netcom [DOT] com

That is what the IWILL slocket 2 is, coppermine compliant. Plus I am
using it now to post these ng messages so it apparently works :-)

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cisko [AT] ix [DOT] netcom [DOT] com

That is what I thought too :-)

I am using A09. But you can use A09-A13. I believe it is DELL. I didn't
have to change anything BIOS-wise. Since you are already running at
450 you will be all set too. Just order the parts and pop them in. I
thought adamant gave great service. Everything arrived in a couple
of days.

It scaled with Mhz increase. I run F1 2000 at 800x600 on my 12 MB
voodoo2 card. I was getting 20fps in test sessions and 15fps in
quick races. This is with a full field and mirrors on but mirror detail
off. Also I had the***pit and AI cars maxed. Everything else was
one or 2 notches below max. I also believe the dust and smoke
effects are set to low. With the 600E, I now get 24fps in quick
races and a solid 18-19 in quick races. At the start it dips to
13-14 but it is certainly an improvement compared to the P2-450.

Falcon4's campaign went from 20fps at 1024x768 to 26-27fps
after the upgrade. Falcon showed a bigger improvement because
it is running in Glide (IMHO).

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cisko [AT] ix [DOT] netcom [DOT] com

Can I ask you a couple of questions about your upgrade:
- what BIOS are you running?  Dell or Intel?  I have Dell Flash BIOS A13
- what's approximate the performance improvement (in FPS) in F1 2000 going
to the P3-600E?

Thanks in advance,
Brian

Right now this will only support Pentium3 up to 600 Mhz.

Does this adapter make it possible to run faster CPU's on my old mainboard??

Karl

Frankly I don't know. You can check with your board mfr. What I do
know is that my DELL bios will sense what the speed of the CPU is
supposed to be and do the proper multiplication. Obviously I have
no idea if your board will do that or not. You may have jumpers
which set your multiplier. If you do you may be able to set your
FSB (front side bus) speed to 133mhz and overclock a little.

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cisko [AT] ix [DOT] netcom [DOT] com

I know with the lder Abit boards u can upgrade the bios to handle an 8x
multiplier, not sure if any higher,

Md

Intel has been fixing the multiplier of their PIII chips.  You can tell your
motherboard to run at 2x, 3x, 27x or 3.14x and it's still going to run at
the multiplier that is fixed in the cpu.

As to the question about the P2B.... the answer seems to be yes, as long as
you use the IWILL slocket card.  If you want to plug a coppermine chip
directly into you P2B then you need to check the revision of your board.
This can be found on a sticker next to the ISA slot.  More info can be found
at the asus web site.    Keep in mind that the P2B only drops down to 1.8v,
which is above the 1.5v needed for the coppermine chips.  Be sure to have
some damn good cooling, but from what I've read it's not much of a problem.
Of course the IWILL slocket has a voltage regulator on board, so again this
isn't a problem.

If you want my opinion, yes the P2B will work with the slocket card.  And
with the limitations of memory speed, bus speed, etc... in all Intel based
boards, upgrading your 440BX based system with a slocket and a coppermine
chip is a great way to go.   It will extend the lifetime of your system by
another year to year and a half.  Hopefully by this time next year, we'll
see some dramatic improvements in system design that will call for upgrading
the entire system.  I will be replacing my cpu with a coppermine as soon as
I can cost effectively double my cpu power.  I currently have a 466 celeron,
so a 800-850mhz PIII is my goal...