Asus P5BW-LA: Fastest/most powerful processor it can support?

I have an HP prebuilt desktop PC from 2005/2006 (HP a1640n) in the basement with a stock Asus P5BW-LA motherboard, an Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 (2.66 GHz) processor, an Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX, 8 GB of RAM (4x2 GB PC2-6400), and a 240 GB SanDisk SSD with Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) installed on it.

The mobo BIOS is currently at 3.17 (the newest, I believe), and I was wondering if the board could support slightly faster and more recent processors thanks to this updated BIOS, such as the Core 2 Duo E7x00 or even E8x00 lines (an E8700 would be nice, but it seems like those are extremely rare since they were OEM only). I suspect that it should support E7x00 Core 2 Duos just fine as it has a 1066 MT/s FSB speed (the fastest FSB it can support according to HP), but I'm not sure about the E8x00s due to their 1333 MT/s.

Thanks.

Pete

Posted 2018-05-25T03:05:29.443

Reputation: 21

If that is what HP says then that is the max processor supported, unless you can find other evidence it is not. It is no longer supported by HP also, so no bios updates to support newer processors.....https://support.hp.com/us-en/search?q=HP%20a1640n&filter=-1

– Moab – 2018-05-25T12:26:35.540

I'm tempted to get a couple of these processors from eBay anyway (specifically the Core 2 Duo E7600 and E8700), just to see if they'll work. Could they end up damaging themselves or the mobo, though? – Pete – 2018-05-25T15:33:54.270

I actually meant E8600. – Pete – 2018-05-25T17:23:48.243

Answers

Q6600 may be the best CPU for your MB as the Q6600 FSB runs at 1066 Mhz. I've had early 775 MBs that can only work with 1066 Mhz processors. The Q6600 (if you're lucky) can easily be overclocked to 3.0 Ghz if you know what you're doing. Though the early 775 MB can only work 1066 FSB which limits you to the Q6600 at best. Still the Q6600 is an excellent quad core CPU which runs at 2.4 Ghz but with the hugh cache (same cache as the legendary i7 2600 and 2600K Sandybridge CPUs) the Q6600 can still push it's way easily through most applications including video editing. The Q6600 may be a little slower at 2.4 Ghz but pair it up with a GTX650 (I use a Radeon 4850 myself with the Q6600) or higher and you'll have a pretty decent desktop for pretty much everything (except gaming).

If the E7600 worked then an E8500 (6 MB cache at 3.16 Ghz clock-speed) will also work. I have the HP A1640n motherboard and 8 GB of DDR2 ram but have not tested the CPU / MB combo yet.

Wilson

Posted 2018-05-25T03:05:29.443

Reputation: 11

I don't think my mobo supports quad-core CPUs, at least not officially. There's this modded bios that claims to enable support for the Q6600, Q6700, QX6700, and QX6800 (all 1066 MHz 65 nm quad-cores). However, it's in the form of a .rom file and I need to figure out how to flash it. Might fool around with this some other time. Thanks, though!

– Pete – 2019-02-05T04:02:18.923

Alright, I just tested both of them and neither of them worked. However, I am now considering getting an X6800 (65 nm, 2.93 GHz) and seeing if that works. Hopefully my current CPU cooler (ASUS 13G075135022H2) and power supply (EVGA 600 W 80 Plus White 100-W1-0600-K1) will be able to handle it.

Pete

Posted 2018-05-25T03:05:29.443

Reputation: 21

-2

Late to the party here but I have that same HP motherboard and although officially not supported, I use a Q6700 cpu, 8gb of Kingston HyperX Ram and a Evga GTX 1050 TI SC. Runs beautifully under Windows 10. CPU is also detected just fine under Windows. Q6600 works fine too (Tested).

Aaron

Posted 2018-05-25T03:05:29.443

Reputation: 1

Are you sure your board is the same as mine? I have the modified BIOS and I'm running the QX6800 without issue, but I couldn't get PCIe 2.0 graphics cards to work, only PCIe 1.0 (which is why I'm using a GeForce 8800 GTX). However, I have not tried PCIe 3.0 cards, I believe. Please let me know how you got a GPU that new running on this board. Thanks. – Pete – 2019-07-26T16:19:53.193

@Pete - If a PCIe GPU does not work then a PCIe is guaranteed not to work. PCIe is backwards compatible, the reason the PCIe didn’t work is unclear, don’t waste your money on something that won’t work until you determine the real reason the PCIe device didn’t work. – Ramhound – 2019-10-07T02:24:34.053

@Ramhound About 2 years ago, I took the HP PC down to a repair shop so they could figure out why my ATI Radeon HD 3650 card wasn't working with it. After testing the PC with various different PCIe graphics cards installed, they determined that my motherboard only supported PCIe 1.0 cards. I haven't come up with any other ways to diagnose this issue to come to a different conclusion, so if you can think of any, please let me know. Thanks. – Pete – 2019-10-11T20:39:43.673