which CPU upgrade?

[RaMDOM]

Right guys - I don't know what to do.

I haven't got a lot of money and i need to upgrade to a dual core processor (specifically for Supreme Commander (see my other post))

I could either - buy a AMDX2 939 4600 and slot it straight into my motherboard, and then sell my AMD 64 3800 for about £35-£40 and get some of the cash back - I reckon in all a £100 outlay.

Or I could buy a core 2 duo a new mobo and then RAM for about £350 - £400.

Thing is I would rather go the AMD route as it is much much cheaper, however I would want to see my £100 pounds well spent. If I plug it in and I see no improvement I will be gutted.

Also could someone tell me what the two cores are in the 4600 - are they 3800's or better? I don't want to see a drop in performance of my single core apps

 

[RaMDOM]

Cheers for the responses guys.

My ful spec is the 3800 in an ASRock Dual SATA2 Mobo with 2gig dual channel Corsair 400Mhz Ram. The graphics card is fine for a while - is an HIS 512MB X1900XT, bought from OcUK last October time I might add.

I think that I should go the C2D route and enter in at at least a 6400 - preferably a 6600. I read in this months Custom PC that some chap got a C2D solution but put in DDR Ram into the MoBo. Now I know that this would not be ideal and would throttle the CPU a bit but what do you guys think. if the hit on performance wouldn't be that great then I guess I could upgrade the CPU and Mobo in the short term and do the Ram a bit later.

What does everyone think?

 

[RaMDOM]

being as u have the dual sata how about the Asrock 4CoreDual-VSTA and either the 4300 or 6300 re use u're 2gb of memory and gfx card.

mobo is about £40 and processor about £115.

would it limit the performance massively have only DDR ram and not the DDR2?

 

[RaMDOM]

But drastically so - I mean are we talking a drop of half or quarter?