Kingston TurboChip 400

If you have one of those old PC's that is getting on, but want something more out of it before you get a whole new system? Kingston's TurboChip 400 might be the answer. 

Firstly, this chip uses the AMD K6-2 400 as the processor. It is designed to upgrade Socket 5 & 7 motherboards. 

Don't think this chip will give your old PC Pentium 4 performance. In fact, far from it. Just using it for programs like Word processing and the Internet, I did notice the difference in loading time - it was slightly faster. That's on standard programs - games don't fare so well. Playing the latest graphic intensive games like Unreal Tournament is not to good. Forget about this upgrade path if you are a hard core gamer and want full screen, silky sooth graphics - go for a complete system upgrade. With Direct 3D support enabled, graphics set to low quality, I managed to score an average of 13FPS. And that's with a resolution of 400X300! Move to full screen, forget about it! About 7-9FPS. Even less. 

Installation was simple (if you know what your doing). Just take your old processor out and replace it with this one, then connect the 4-pin power cable to your Power Supply. That's it.

Another thing, the BIOS on my IBM Aptiva doesn't like the chip. Each time I boot my PC on, it enters the BIOS letting me know that it doesn't know what the chip is. This is more of an annoyance if anything. So everytime I start my computer, I go through the BIOS. There is no BIOS updates from IBM :-(.

The system I used:

Original - IBM Aptiva LQ6 2140                                                           

              Intel Pentium 200 MMX

              SIS 5597 Chipset

              Apacer 128MB RAM PC-100MHz (Running at 66MHz)

              Aopen PT80 (SIS 6326 Chipset, 4MB) Video Card

              Fujitsu 10.24GB MPF 3102AT (5400RPM)

New - Kingston TurboChip 400 (AMD K6-2 400 with 3D Now!)

My conclusion - There was some performance increase. I am now able to play DVD movies. But with games, about 1FPS increase. This does not justify the hefty price of around $300AUS.  However, getting a better video card with the P200 system gave me no problem running Unreal 800X600+ . I was using a Voodoo Banshee 16MB card. Using a Voodoo 3, 4 or 5 would give you better results, and would be just as good (if not better) using the TurboChip.

Copyright © 2001 Dave's Hardware

Last Modified: December 1, 2001