Upgrading CPU from Single-core to Dual-core

I’ve finally upgraded the CPU in my main system from a single-core cpu (AMD Athlon64 3500+) to a dual-core CPU. The process went very smoothly on my Windows XP SP2-based system.

I’d initially been looking at the AMD Athlon64 X2 processors but, after doing some research, decided on getting an AMD Opteron dual-core instead. The Opteron is AMD’s server-grade processor and is considered to be more reliable, cooler-running, and, therefore, more overclock-able. I decided on an Opteron 170, which is pretty similar out-of-the-box to an Athlon64 4200+. Because it’s an Opteron, though, people have been able to reliably bump up the clock from 2.0gHz to 2.6gHz using nothing more than the included heatsink. That takes the performance from an Athon64 4200+ to FX-60 speeds (the FX-60 is AMD’s top-of-the-line gaming CPU) at a fraction of the cost.

I haven’t tried pushing the clock speeds too much in my system yet. I still have Kingston value-level RAM which works great at the stock FSB speeds but gets very unreliable when pushed too hard. Once I get some better quality RAM I plan to see just how far the CPU can be pushed.

The installation itself went off without a hitch. I first had to upgrade the firmware on my motherboard (an MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum) so that the BIOS would be able to see the 2nd processor. Without this step the CPU still would have worked but the BIOS (and the OS) would only have seen a single-core processor.

Since the Opterons are officially meant for use in servers most motherboard manufacturers (including mine) don’t list the Opterons on their websites when they list the processors which are compabitle with their motherboards. Any motherboard which can handle a dual-core Athlon64 should also be able to handle a dual-core Opteron, though. At least that’s how things have played out up to this point.

Once the BIOS was updated I just booted into Windows XP (SP2). The system took a minute to detect and install the driver for the new processor. Once it was done it asked me to reboot and — presto — I had a fully functional dual-core machine. Going into the Windpws Device Manager I could see that Windows installed a new driver for the CPU (the driver is now “ACPI Multiprocessor PC”) to take advantage of the 2nd core.

I’ve also booted my system using the Knoppix 5 Live DVD and it also recognizes and uses the 2nd processor.

If you’re in the market for a dual-core processor Id suggest that you take a look at the AMD Opterons. At this point they can’t be beat in terms of performance per dollar. The upgrade, at least on Windows XP SP2 machines, couldn’t be simpler.

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