Upgrade P2 350 to 1G without relpacing Mobo???

Can anyone tell me about this . Do these things really work. From what I read it looks like there has to be a catch.

 

GO TO ZDNET & READ

http://home.zdnet.com/products/stories/pipreviews/0,8827,377987,00.html

PRO's & CON's

Prequalification is the most important part of the process. Checking Evergreen's Web site, we discovered that the Intel Atlanta motherboard and 440LX chip set in our 266MHz Pentium II Gateway system were unsuitable for the Performa600 upgrade. (Evergreen does say that the Performa600 is for 350MHz or faster systems, but we figured we'd give it a try nonetheless.) Our second choice was a 450MHz NEC system with an Intel Seattle motherboard and a 440BX chip set. It took a call to Evergreen's customer-service line to find out that this system was also unsuitable -- which, quite frankly, we were surprised to hear.

Finally, we went out and bought an MSI BXMaster motherboard with an Award BIOS and 440BX chip set and installed it in the Gateway chassis. Although we had to do some slight BIOS fiddling to get the Performa600 working, it didn't require too much effort. Next, we ran Evergreen's testing software to determine any needed BIOS upgrades and perform rudimentary performance checks. Finally, we tested the Performa600.

And were we ever impressed. The CPUmark 99 score went from 21.2 with the 266MHz Pentium II to 41.8 with the Performa600. That's better than a 97 percent increase in CPU power, and the improvements did not stop there. The 2D-graphics score shot up nearly 66 percent, and overall performance, as measured by Business Winstone 99, jumped almost 36 percent.

Even factoring in the cost of the new motherboard, we were able to turn our dozing 266MHz system into a 600MHz workhorse for less than $400. In our book, that's not bad at all.


Savvy