NF4 Expert: Upgrade from an SD3700+ to an X2 4200+, What To Do?

[FLD]

Hi all,

 

I am thinking of going dual core because of the recent price drop. So I'd like to ask a few questions as follow:

 

1. Will I just be able to replace the SD 3700+ straight away? I think my BIOS is the 2006/04/06 one (I do not remember the exact code).

 

2. Will I need to reformat the HDD and reinstall the OS? I am kinda lazy:p atm but if it needs be I'll do so.

 

3. What patches and drivers should I install for the X2 cpu? I kinda remember that I have to install some dual-core enable patche or driver? I do not remeber that it was for the game or universal use of the dual-core feature.

 

EDIT: 4. I currently use Windows 2000 Pro and have no plan to upgrade to Win XP, will there be any disadvantage of using Windows 2000 Pro?

 

Thank you very much.

[mantaray]

Try this thread:

http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=60457

[SeanDude05]

It is advised to reinstall the OS after you first install the processor, that way Windows can properly set up for dual-core.

[FLD]

Thank you very much.

[Mindflux]

About the OS I'd suggest using WinXP x64.

You can get a 6month free trial of it. It is slightly (but only sightly) less stable then XP but it meanwhile takes advantage of the dual cores properly, giving you really fast boot/shutdown times. The only problem with it really is that it has an added very slight chance to crash a 32bit program but I've been running it for like a month and it's only happened a few times.

Also you get IEx64 with it which runs a lot faster than both IE32bit(regular) and Firefox (though on the downside flash hasn't been coded to function in a 64bit browser yet for some stupid reason).