AMD chips

[puggit]

I currently have an AMD Duron 1200MHz - can I replace it with an Athlon?

Or isn't it that simple?

Do I really need to find out my motherboard, trapse to the manufacturers website and find compatibility?

[davidd]

The sort answer is...

It depends..

On which Athelon you want to replace it with and if your motherboard will support it.

Post details of both and I'm sure someone will tell you.

I had a duron 700 (overclocked to 900 of course) and wanted to upgrade to athalon last year. Although the socket was the same the bus speed on the motherboard would not let me run the athalon at its proper speed so I changed that as well, and the memory and graphics and I shoved a new hard drive in at the same time

However I suspect your motherboard might be newer than my old one so you might find it is ok.

D.

[arcturus]

I am afraid you will have to find out your motherboard type, but then if you post the details here we should be able to tell you what you can upgrade to.

Motherboard details are normally shown as the machine boots, and to stop it all whizzing past so quick that you cant read it, press shift/pause as the machine boots to halt the boot. To resume the boot press enter.

The model number is normally near the top of the screen, but failing that post the long string of alphanumeric digits that appears near the bottom and we should be able to decode it from that.

[plotloss]

Short answer: Yes

All Athlons should be compatible with any motherboard that supports Duron (as long as we are talking Socket 462 not Slot A) but if you go and buy the latest and greatest 3Ghz job be aware that it may not actually perform to its max capacity.