At the moment my PC contains an MSI 645E Max-U mainboard (click here for my mainboard specs if you need them) , and thats fine, what I want to change is my CPU, at the moment I'm running a 2Ghz Intel Celeron, and really want to change it, I've found two that I'm pretty sure will be compatible with my mainboard,
1) GENIUNE INTEL PENTIUM 4 3.0E GHZ PRESCOTT (Click here for specs)
and 2) Intel Pentium 4 3.06Ghz Processor (Click here for specs)
My main question is that which one should I choose, both match the socket in my mainboard but the first one has an 800Mhz FSB and my Mainboard can only handle up to 533Mhz, but the second one is a 533.
And last is that both have speeds (over 3Ghz) that are faster than my mainboard can handle it can only go up to 2.8. If I chose one of them (I'm leaning closer to the second) would they work and just waste that power? or would they not work?
Thanks a million guys!
Kind Regards,
Dan

I would certainly be wary of installing a CPU faster than the board can support. Sometimes it will just "clock down" to the fastest supported speed but, sometimes, it will try to auto-detect it and won't have a clue what you've plugged in. Have you tried looking for a BIOS update for your board - you might find that an updated BIOS supports 3.0GHz processors.

Same applies to running an 800MHz FSB CPU on a 533MHz board - it might work but I personally wouldn't risk it, particularly as you won't get the benefit of the more expensive 800MHz bus on the processor anyway.

Hope that helps.

Huge Help DJ thanks, I've found a CPU that will work with my MOBO, but I have another question, how much, if any, will upgrading my CPU from my celeron to a p4 increase the performance of my PC? and I'm also considering upping my graphics card, I have at the moment, a nVidia Geforce 5200 128MB, and was thinking about getting a ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB, (I've heard that ATI are the better ones now) will that be an improvement, I'm mainly concerned about gaming performance.
Thanks again!
Kind Regards,
Dan

Most people wouldn't see much of a difference between a Celeron and a Pentium 4 rated at the same speed. However, Pentium 4 processors are better for gaming as they have 4 times as much Level 2 (L2) cache. This is a tiny amount of extremely fast memory that is used for processing instructions and games use a lot of it. Your 2.0GHz Celeron processor is likely to have 256Kb of L2 cache, whereas a new Pentium 4 would have a full megabyte of it.

The biggest factor in a processor upgrade is the clock speed. For example, you were talking before about going from a 2.0GHz Celeron to a 3.0GHz Pentium 4. That extra 1000MHz will make a big difference for fast-moving data, such as playing games where there's a lot of detail and information to process. I don't play games at all but even I would see a big difference in going from a Celeron 2.0GHz to a Pentium 4 3.0GHz. My old Pentium 4 2.4GHz PC was noticeably quicker than my new Celeron 2.0GHz laptop and that's just for opening programs, working with spreadsheets, data transfers, etc. You'd see an even bigger difference with games.

As for the graphics card, you'd see a difference if you were buying one with more memory. The Radeon 9800 is a nice card but I think that, other than the fact that some games might be more compatible with ATi chipsets than nVidia chipsets, I don't think you'd see that much of a difference. Certainly not nearly as much as the processor upgrade.

Hope that helps

Isn't the Radeon 9800 Pro a 256Mb graphics card? http://www.ati.com/products/radeon98...pro/index.html

I don't know about prices but the Radeon X800 has superceded the 9800 and ATI claim it offers up to twice the performance: http://www.ati.com/products/radeonx800/index.html

Thats a fantastic help DJ, and as far as I know the x800 is much better than the 9800 pro, I was looking at an x800 it was a PCI Express, is this just a cheap knock off? or is it ok, and with new cards do you have to check if it will work with the computer I have? Thanks.
Dan