Fast(est) compatible CPU for Acer j87m motherboard

Question

Pc: Acer G600 desktop (standard configuration / no replaced components)

• Motherboard: Acer j87m
• CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.60GHz
• GPU: ALL-IN-WONDER 9000
• RAM: 512 MB --> Will be upgraded to 2GB (max RAM supported by Acer j87m)

Objective: upgrade the pc with the fastest cpu compatible with the motherboard. This machine will be equipped with a windows os or linux os and will be used to run office applications (for writing documents/browsing/reading emails/etc).

Problem: I can't find a list of all the CPUs compatible with Acer j87m motherboard. I would like to know which CPUs I could use to upgrade my machine. Which is the fastest CPU compatible with this motherboard model? Where can I find such information?

(I already tried searching Acer support website and many websites about hardware compatibility but they don't list Acer j87m, probably because it isn't a recent model)

Answer 1

Your motherboard was sold with several different chipsets on it; the best possible answer will depend on what chipset you have available.

Without knowing more than you have already said, the best certain upgrade would be the Pentium 4 RK80532PC064512. That's already probably the CPU you have, BUT you can do a bsel mod on it if your chipset supports an FSB frequency of 533mhz. In that case the bsel mod bringing it from 400mhz to 533mhz, if stable, would would make your CPU run at 3,4645mhz, or roughly 3.5ghz.

The fastest non-modded CPU available for any chipset you have would be the Pentium 4 RK80532PE083512, which runs at 3.067ghz and has HT technology, enabling to be roughly twice as fast as any other CPU of the same architecture and clock speed when running multithreaded programs which do not max out any single thread. Your PC must support a FSB frequency of 533mhz to run this processor.

Interestingly, there are a few processors listed for your board which have 800mhz FSB support. These are not of great interest to you in and of themselves, as they all sport lower clockspeeds than the CPUs discussed above, but they do indicate that if you had a board that supported an FSB of 800mhz, there's probably a Bsel mod you could try which would push your current CPU to the insane heights of ~5.2ghz - I almost guarantee it would not be stable, however.

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On a side note, your PC is woefully outdated and is currently outperformed by almost all smartphones. New computers which are incredibly more powerful than that machine can be had for less than $50. It is probably time to upgrade.