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PowerLeap, maker of Intel CPU upgrade kits, should sue.

3.4 - 3.0 = 0.4

3.4 / 3.0 = 1.1333...

I didn't bother to RTFA, so tell me: Did Intel achieve anywere near a 13% increase in performance? 10%? 6.5%? 5%?

Also, remember that early versions of the P4 were MUCH slower than the P3 at the same clock speeds [owing to all that increased pipelining]. And note also that the P3 continues to retain something of a cult status among hardcore skinflints; compare e.g. the PowerLeap PL-iP3T and PL-P3SMP. Finally, there is a persistent fascination with low-voltage, low-heat versions of the chip, which were originally marketed towards laptops, but are now drawing a lot of interest from embedded/blade/appliance manufacturers.

3.4 - 3.0 = 0.4

3.4 / 3.0 = 1.1333...

I didn't bother to RTFA, so tell me: Did Intel achieve anywere near a 13% increase in performance? 10%? 6.5%? 5%?

Also, remember that early versions of the P4 were MUCH slower than the P3 at the same clock speeds [owing to all that increased pipelining]. And note also that the P3 continues to retain something of a cult status among hardcore skinflints; compare e.g. the PowerLeap PL-iP3T and PL-P3SMP. Finally, there is a persistent fascination with low-voltage, low-heat versions of the chip, which were originally marketed towards laptops, but are now drawing a lot of interest from embedded/blade/appliance manufacturers.

A really reasonable upgrade for that machine is to grab yourself an adapter from Powerleap. I had an old Dell P3 450, bought just the adapter from Powerleap (Slot 1 to Socket 370) for like $60, and a 1.4 GHz Celeron (Tualatin core) from Newegg for like $50, and had a $110 upgrade that breathed new life into that old machine. I did all this about a year ago, so prices might be a bit cheaper now. You can get the adapters from Powerleap with procs already installed, but you save some $$$ doing it yourself. Also, a 7200rpm harddrive will really speed things up for you. Oh, don't forget to flash your BIOS to recognize the Celeron.

Makes ya wonder whether a company such as Powerleap might come out with a CPU adapter to support it. For a long time the Athlon MP series offered the only affordable SMP solution, especially if like me you found a pair of Athlon XPs which worked happily in SMP mode.

I would have modded you down, but I didn't think that that would properly convey my reaction to this statement, which is : fuck you.

Even if you were dead set on upgrading only the CPU, you still could have gotten a better deal at powerleap. They sell 1.2ghz/100mhz slot-1 for $129.

You do have to check your motherboard for compatibility on their list, but most motherboards will work fine with it.

And no, I'm not getting paid to say this--in fact I actually dislike how powerleap uses patents to lock out competitors from the slot-1 upgrade market. But as far as their product goes I've been using the 1.2ghz upgrade for over a year now and it has worked absolutely flawlessly.

Upgrades are a fun loophole. You could upgrade the same PC forever thanks to the efforts of www.powerleap.com and www.evertech.com.

The first link that returns is an old kernel patch, specifically for enabling the L2 cache on a Celeron, although with "powerleap", whatever that is. That is something to try though, just make sure you have a backup kernel to boot from.

Also, there was a post to lkml with a similar question here without a solution.

If you don't find a solution, the best place to post isn't slashdot but to LKML.

In most cases, it is far more cost effective to buy what you need for the moment, and upgrade later after

1. prices have dropped,
2. you actually need the upgrade.

Of course, if you actually need the Xeon right now then you should get it, but buying in anticipation of future needs makes no sense to me when prices are falling so fast.

Actually, a little known secret is that there exist Tualatin-compatible slot 1 slockets, and they work quite well. I've been using one for months and I am very happy with it. (Disclaimer: I have no relationship with PowerLeap other than that of satisfied customer.)

100 MHz Tualatin Pentium IIIs are actually extremely easy to find. You just have to realize that Intel calls them "Celerons" and not "Pentium III"s.

For a 100 MHz slot 1 upgrade kit complete with Tualatin-compatible slocket and Pentium III based 1.2 GHz Celeron CPU, look for the PowerLeap PL-iP3T.

the board you picked up with no ports and ribbion options. where did you get whats its name and how much

Could easily be smaller if they got rid of the serial and parallel i/o. Ps/2 needs to go too! There's enough usb stuff out there that something like this shoudln't need them.

I haven't used serial/parallel/ps2 in over a year at least. Disable them all in the bios to save interupts.

Take a look at the PowerLeap Renaissance/370S. That could be an easy way to put modern hardware in an old or unusual case.

If you're looking to do the same thing, cheaply and with a little DIY hardware tech time, simply buy a big ATX case with room for a couple of extra power supplies, install a 386 or 286 mobo (all ISA slots!!!), and buy a number of these computers and plug them in. They don't draw power from the motherboard, so you don't even bother connecting the 286 to power. Instead, tie each power supply to one or two of these cards directly (requires a little soldering), and there you go. A cluster in a box.

If I had the money, I'd be doing this myself. Instead, I've got a rack full of 4U AT cases with dual PPro 200mhz machines instead. The one advantage to having full sized motherboards (with PCI slots) is that I'm installing triple-channel-bonded ethernet so I get gigabit ethernet bandwith, without paying gigabit prices.

The Tualatin will also work with Serverworks chipsets (Supermicro do a few boards based on them) AND Powerleap sell a convertor that allows Tualatins to run on slot 1 mainboards

The only two cool things about the PCI card in the article is host-IP connectivity (which essentially is a dual ethernet card then, perfect for firewalls and such), and 10W power draw straight from the host's power supply.

However, Powerleap, ubiquitous for upgrades and socket adapters, also has a card which touts some similar attributes called the Renaissance/370S based on a Socket 370 or FC-PGA chip. It cranks with Celeron, Celeron II, and P3 chips. Quite rockin'.

The main cool thing about this device is it does NOT use the motherboard slot it sits in. It just uses it as a place to mount. That's right, you can put one in an ISA slot and still run the motherboard it sits in and they won't know a thing about each other, because no pins are connected between them. The price is also a lot better (~$250 for a low end model), you can swap out the CPU and it has two DIMM slots, with a max ram per slot of 512mb (1GB combined). The specs are much better and the price is much lower. It's just marketed as an upgrade option rather than a performance enhancement to an existing machine.

I've been looking into this as a solution for my cluster, but haven't gotten up the nerve to buy them yet. From what I can find on the web, they're the best cluster card option, especially if you are handy with soldering. To really maximize the power per box, I'd probably buy a dead 486 motherboard (ISA slots all the way across the board, which this card requires), slam four Renaissance cards in it, link two power supplies in parallel, rig extra power and reset switches for each card separate from the power supply, and there's your mini-cluster. Probably 4 machines per 4U case, which notably isn't a huge space savings over 4 1U pizza boxes, but it costs less than a single 1U server would.

The only two cool things about the PCI card in the article is host-IP connectivity (which essentially is a dual ethernet card then, perfect for firewalls and such), and 10W power draw straight from the host's power supply.

However, Powerleap, ubiquitous for upgrades and socket adapters, also has a card which touts some similar attributes called the Renaissance/370S based on a Socket 370 or FC-PGA chip. It cranks with Celeron, Celeron II, and P3 chips. Quite rockin'.

The main cool thing about this device is it does NOT use the motherboard slot it sits in. It just uses it as a place to mount. That's right, you can put one in an ISA slot and still run the motherboard it sits in and they won't know a thing about each other, because no pins are connected between them. The price is also a lot better (~$250 for a low end model), you can swap out the CPU and it has two DIMM slots, with a max ram per slot of 512mb (1GB combined). The specs are much better and the price is much lower. It's just marketed as an upgrade option rather than a performance enhancement to an existing machine.

I've been looking into this as a solution for my cluster, but haven't gotten up the nerve to buy them yet. From what I can find on the web, they're the best cluster card option, especially if you are handy with soldering. To really maximize the power per box, I'd probably buy a dead 486 motherboard (ISA slots all the way across the board, which this card requires), slam four Renaissance cards in it, link two power supplies in parallel, rig extra power and reset switches for each card separate from the power supply, and there's your mini-cluster. Probably 4 machines per 4U case, which notably isn't a huge space savings over 4 1U pizza boxes, but it costs less than a single 1U server would.

HardOCP.com sez:
There will be a few of you excited about this. Powerleap has put together an adapter that will allow you to stick a S370 Tualatin chip on your current Slot 1 mainboard. Looks as if some of you might have some server upgrade options that you did not before. w00t!!1
The PL-iP3/T(TM) employs patented technologies to adapt Slot 1 systems to the voltage and signal requirements of the new generation of Intel's Pentium III (FC-PGA2) and Celeron-II (FC-PGA2) processors. With the PL-iP3/T(TM), a typical* P-III system can reach speeds up to 1.26 GHz with the latest Pentium III-S CPUs (133 MHz FSB required), and up to 1.2 GHz when used with the latest Celeron-II CPUs (100 MHz FSB required).

• You can do fancy stuff with old PCs.
• Components manufacturers will always have a least one overpowered, show-off product just to market their skill, if nothing else.

--

rocking with a Kingston 486 upgrade and a Kingston memory MCA board, fully populated with 16mb of ram

Does anyone else know any other companies with a flare for such upgrades?

sorry, powerleap

What I wonder is, can you throw a powerleap Neo S370 adapter and have yourself a dual Pentium III system on it? Someone should look into that, it'd be very interesting.

Powerleap has an FCPGA to PPGA converter card that should work in the BP6. You can use either the P3 coppermine or the Celeron II.

See http://www.powerleap.com/pdg5/_di sc1/00000067.htm, http://www.powerleap.com/pdg5/_di sc1/000002a1.htm and http://www.powerleap.com/pdg5/_di sc1/00000341.htm. This would make a nice cheap and simple way for me to upgrade my Dual PPro-180 :-)

See http://www.powerleap.com/pdg5/_di sc1/00000067.htm, http://www.powerleap.com/pdg5/_di sc1/000002a1.htm and http://www.powerleap.com/pdg5/_di sc1/00000341.htm. This would make a nice cheap and simple way for me to upgrade my Dual PPro-180 :-)

See http://www.powerleap.com/pdg5/_di sc1/00000067.htm, http://www.powerleap.com/pdg5/_di sc1/000002a1.htm and http://www.powerleap.com/pdg5/_di sc1/00000341.htm. This would make a nice cheap and simple way for me to upgrade my Dual PPro-180 :-)