Your BioStar P4SXQ motherboard only supports a 400 MHz fronstside bus; the
higher end Pentium 4s run on a 800 MHz bus these days.  This is the limiting
factor, since you have to use a processor designated for the 400 MHz bus.
This limits you to the Pentium 4 2.6 GHz model as the fastest that you can
use.  While it does use the Northwood core, Intel didn't include or enable
hyperthreading on their 400 MHz fronstide bus Pentium 4s.  This is basically
reserved for the 800 MHz fronstide bus Pentium 4s, though there are a couple
of  533
MHz frontside bus Pentium 4s with hyperthreading.

Although you said that your motherboard is limited to the Pentium 4 2.4GHz,
this might not be the case any longer.  Perhaps the 2.6GHz processor just
wasn't available at the time of your motherboard's manufacture.  It may
simply need a BIOS update at this point to properly recognize the 2.6GHz
model.  The BioStar site shows their latest version of the P4SXQ, ver. 1.3,
as supporting the 2.6GHz processor.

Whether this upgrade, which will max out the capability of your current
motheboard, is the best way to invest your computer dollar, will depend on
what you were hoping the upgrade would make possible because the Celeron was
incapable of it.

John Sproule

----- Original Message -----
From: "Devo130" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2004 11:37 PM
Subject: [PCBUILD] Processor types


Ok, I have a question, what is the difference between the P4 2.4 Northwood
core and the others? I just want a good chip. Also if the chip is
Hyper-threading enabled, does the motherboard have to be also? The
motherboard I have is the Biostar P4SXQ currently running a Celeron on it
but can support up to a P4 2.4 Doesn't mention anything about H/T, so I have
no clue if it would work on my board at all. Please advise soonest!

                  Visit our website regularly for FAQs,
               articles, how-to's, tech tips and much more
                          http://freepctech.com