Need some upgrading advice please? Im stuck!

[Yucca]

Hi all,

Ok i have a bit of a dilema on my hands so here goes...

I have a FDI expert mobo and a 7900GT which i brough and upgraded to about 2 months ago so that i could go to pcie. The rest of my spec is in my sig below.

Now im quite happy with my pc and dont like to blow cash for the sake of it. But i have had this old 1 gig of corsair ram for a long time now (about 3 years) and i was considering going up to 2 gig to make my games a bit nippier and maybe speed up windows a bit. I have also been considering getting a x2 chip as i want to go dual core to 1) keep my pc future proof 2) im sure i will feel the difference in windows when im surfing the net, copying a cd and blasting music at the same time as running the anti virus in the back ground!

Now i have two options. Either i can stick with my expencive mobo seen as i have only had it a while and its future proof in a sense that i can buy another 7900 GT if need be later and go sli. I could just sell the 3200 winchester (which i have running at 2600mhz) and get either a 4400 for £158. Or i could buy a second hand opteron 165 which does atleast 2600mhz ( i know this for sure). I could then ditch my old memory and spend about £150 and get a 2 gig set of ram and run a divider.


But eveyone seems to be raving on about core due. So my other option is to ditch my motherboard, memory and ram and spend about £150 (cpu) + £150 (motherboard) and £200 (good ram).

If i stick with amd i will spend about £300 and have a spare gig of ram and a 3200 winni to sell off.

If i go intel i will have to spend about £500 and have a spare gig of ram, 3200 winni and a DFI expert motherboard to sell.

Now my question is, is it worth me spending the extra £200? Will i see a difference between a core due and ddr2 as apposed to a 4400 x2/opteron with 2 gig of ddr1?

I play mostly games and the rest of the time i use py pc for downloading, buring cds, watching freeview and watching avi's and listning to music.

 

[Yucca]

No ideas anyone? Will there be a difference between the two setups?

 

[t31os]

Conroe would be faster.

If you're gonna spend £300 upgrading, it's proberly worth going conroe to save you money in the long run.

You could always buy a conroe ready board and plop a P4 or Celeron in to tie you over if you want to keep costs down.

X2 is more expensive and generally slower then the conroe, hence why its currently so popular, plus the overclocking potential.

 

[Yucca]

Would there be a noticable difference between the 4400x2 and the conro (cheapist one!)? Even if both are clocked to say an average clock?

I agree that it would be more future proof i suppose. I just want to know if there would be any real difference in power between the two?

 

[t31os]

Unless you had both to compare i think you'll find both to be very fast.

Realisticly though, the conroe is better price / performance wise in general.

You won't find fitting Intel chips any different to the AMD's if you have concerns there. Its like the difference between having ATI and Nvidia, kinda .

Like i said if you want to cut the cost, stick a cheapo P4 or something in the board to start with, perhaps something cheap known to clock well.

Even the 6300 Allendale is going to clock great and show awesome performance.

 

[Yucca]

Suppose i could sell my newish DFI for a decent price and fund the extra couple of hundred.