Bob:

I had the same board in a M2 Systems box, and it ran quite well with a
Celeron 400 MHz processor. The caveat was that this board used a "slot 1"
processor board as an upgrade from something else. I was told that when I
wanted to upgrade (don't remember the resource) that it could be done using
an adapter to change the socket 370 processor card to a socket A. When
hunting down these items, I was told that it's never a good idea to upgrade
an upgrade!

Secondly, the SB440 boards are "AT" boards, so replacement power supplies
can be an issue since they have a different power input connector. The box I
had was equipped with a 230 watt power supply, and was sufficient for tasks
such as web surfing and word processing. As I recall, there was a memory
limitation as well. This information can be found at www.crucial.com. All in
all, the system was rock steady, and when upgraded to 256k of pc133 memory,
was by no means a slouch!

For the money, I decided to purchase an Elite Group (ECS) K7SOM+ board with
an AMD 1.2 GHz Duron processor for $75.00, and has many of the bells and
whistles of the top end boards, and gives you the flexibility of many
different kinds of memory... up to 1024 MHz and that is certainly enough for
what I use this machine for. This also created an issue... the ECS board is
an ATX board and would not fit in the AT case... so once the upgrade was
complete, I ended up with a new case that came with a 350 W power supply for
about $40.00 as I recall, and now have a machine that seems to perform as
well as any of the "big boys"!

Sorry for rambling, but for that board, I world definitely go with the
Celeron processor only because they run cooler, and the AT cases were never
real efficient at dissipating heat. Good compatibility with peripherals, bus
speed as I recall was 66MHz, and I don't know how available the adapter
boards for the processor are, but I'm sure that a bit of surfing will
uncover one for you.

HTH

Dean Kiley

> -----Original Message-----
> Subject: [PCBUILD] Selection of CPU for computer build
>
> I purchased a motherboard as the start of a system to be used as an office
> word processor and email machine.  My computer building experience is
> limited.
> Here is the seller's description of the MB:
>
> "This is a used tested Intel SE440BX-2
> Supports Celeron 266 - 433, P2 266 - 450, P3 450 - 600
> Memory 3 Slots up to 768MB PC66, PC100, PC133 168 pin SDRAM
> Integrated Yamaha* PCI audio
> CPU Retaining brackets are included."
>
> I'd appreciate advice concerning selection of a CPU. Speed is not a
> primary
> consideration.
> I am concerned with compatibility, availability, dependability, bus speed
> considerations, etc.
> All suggestions, opinions, or other input would be appreciated.
> Thanks, Bob Lendrim

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