Upgrade advice

[Arterion]

Approximately 15 minutes ago something in my PC died- pretty sure it's the RAM- and refuses to wake up. I figure this is as good a time as any to get an upgrade.

Having looked at various retail sites i've found that the E6600 and X2 6000+ are around the same price point, and I spent a long time perusing the benchmarks over at Tom's Hardware only to find that there seem to be very little in it in terms of performance- so, which one do I go for and why? I won't be overclocking. Advice much appreciated!

 

[deadeyedic30]

Wait, Intel has price cuts coming in July. If you can that its. Intel is regaurded as the better chip now with the C2D.

 

[Dark_Angel]

If he PC died, I am guessing he cant wait.

If you CANT wait, you have 2 options.

Get the cheapest Conroe you can E2140, keep that and then get a quad core later, or get a higher end cpu now.

I personally, say get the cheaper CPU now, sell it later and get quad....

 

[Cob]

If he PC died, I am guessing he cant wait.

If you CANT wait, you have 2 options.

Get the cheapest Conroe you can E2140, keep that and then get a quad core later, or get a higher end cpu now.

I personally, say get the cheaper CPU now, sell it later and get quad....

Spot on.

 

[Arterion]

I thought quad cores were coming out on a different socket in anticipation of DDR3 platforms?

 

[furnace]

I thought quad cores were coming out on a different socket in anticipation of DDR3 platforms?

I hope not! I was rather hoping socket 775 was future proofed for a while yet..?

 

[Arterion]

This is what someone on another forum said in response to an enquiry about future proofing and stuff; if I assume that i'm gonna upgrade once every 18 months or so, it looks like right now i'm better off goig the AMD route...

"CPUs and Boards:

AM2 socket will support AM2+ chips, but at slightly reduced performance. Eventually I suspect AMD will fully move to socket 1207+. AMDs next lot of stuff will co-exist on PGA 940 and LGA 1207 before eventually all moving to LGA 1207. I *think*

Intels 45nm chips need either 680I or P35 boards. I suspect nV wont work on BIOS updates for the 650 boards, but dont hold me to that.

RAM:

DDR2 will be on Intel boards probably until the end of this year. AMD will use DDR2 until next Summer I *think*

Graphics:

PCI-E2.0 is coming soon which is backwards compatable- current PCI-E cards will work on PCI-E2.0 boards but PCI-E2.0 cards will not work on PCI-E boards. The power setup is totally different."