Upgrading CPU (Q6600 and/or E6300 need help)

[Orm]

I have a Q6600 quad core in my machine and my wife is running one of the old core 2 duo E6300's (1.6Ghz default speed).

While i'm happy with my machine, her's is starting to look a little long in the tooth - i've upgraded her memory (4 Gig of Ballistix 6400), graphics card (8800GT), so it's a pretty obvious bet the CPU is slowing her down.

So the question is, do I buy her a E5300 (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-273-IN&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=793) £70 that i've heard rave reviews about and apparently overclocks madly or E7400 (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-271-IN&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=793) £106 OR do I upgrade my cpu to either E7500 (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-193-IN&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=793) £173 or Q9400 (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-270-IN&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=567) £191??

Which is likely to yield the best performance boosts etc ?

 

[metamorphpwner]

the quad vs. duel depends on what she uses the computer for, and it depends if you'll overclock it on not.
personally i''d pick a Q6600 as i just did and it's great for my needs.

 

[Ben M]

What does she do for that to be too slow for her?

I'd just get an overclock on the cpu myself, you should easily see over 2ghz which will give some good performance gains.

 

[Orm]

She games, WoW and some cheesy arcade games

What kind of performance increase would the E5300 give her ?

 

[Ben M]

Well you'd be able to get 3ghz+++ out of it depending on the cooler, so probably quite a bit. the cpu is definitely the limiting factor at the moment.

personally I'd have a go at overclocking first... because that's free.

 

[Faffer]

Definately go with overclocking the E6300 first. Should get over 3GHz fairly easily, with a decent cooler.