need a 'bang for buck' recommendation

[qazwsx]

I want to do a bit of upgrading on this thing..... I was wondering, whats the best upgrade I can do for the lowest amount of money out there? I was thinking a new CPU (core 2 2.13 OR 2.4) or 2gig of ram.
oh and this mobo only supports up to 667 ram, would 800 ram work at all(future mobo upgrades)?
and is there any point in me getting 800mhz ram? I dont plan to OC much or at all

[Panda Man]

DDR2 800 RAM should work, it will only be down clocked. If you plan to upgrade later and want to reuse your old RAM, then grab the 800. I would grab a kit of 2 x 1GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800 RAM and a E6320

[qazwsx]

thanks, would I see a HUGE preformance increse not just in games but real world use aswell with the new e6320? i dont want to get the processer out for a small increse quite yet, havent had It 2 months!

[gvblake22]

Well, it would help if you specified your money situation a little more. As for RAM speed, DDR2-667 is going to be the new standard for the next-gen Intel chips, so I would not recommend anything less than that. DDR2-800 will perform better, but the difference is pretty negligible. The speed of the RAM after DDR2-800 will only really matter if you are overclocking as there are no dividers in the BIOS to run the RAM that fast. But you don't have to overclock to use anything up to (and including) DDR2-800 RAM.

If it were me, and I was making this upgrade for the least amount of money and had to do it today, I would pair your current motherboard with a 2x1GB kit of some CAS 4 DDR2-800 for good performance and a Core 2 Duo E6320. But if you are looking for a bigger CPU upgrade, then an E6600 would be the way to go, but only if that doesn't put you over your invisible budget

Otherwise, you could always wait a few months for Intel's new architechture (code name "Penryn") to become available and snag a mid-range model of the new chips.

[qazwsx]

well im talking about £100-150, very low end budget. Cant really get the new 'penryn' because my motherboard is based on the 945 chipset and it wouldnt work would it? any price drops due soon?

[Panda Man]

Maybe not huge, but you will DEFINATELY see a performance increase over that Pentium D

[qazwsx]

yeah and maybe I could take out a couple of these fans , keeping this 1 from overheating.

ok ive gone off the path now, which would give a bigger increse in performance? the ram or the cpu? (667 ram i think now)

[gvblake22]

Originally Posted by qazwsx

Cant really get the new 'penryn' because my motherboard is based on the 945 chipset and it wouldnt work would it? any price drops due soon?

I'm really not sure actually. It's hard to say for sure actually, it could go either way...
But if you wanted to stick with current generation chips that work with your motherboard, an E6600 would definitely be a great improvement over your current chip. But paried with a 2GB kit of DDR2-800 CAS 4 memory, you might be a over your budget. So here's the breakdown of recommended processor upgrades (within reason) from best performance (top of the list) to least performance (bottom of the list, but still definitely better than your Pentium-D 915)...

E6600
E6420
E6400
E6320
E6300
E4400
E4300

So just pick the best performing chip (highst up the list) that fits your budget with the memory kit of your choice and you'll be good to go!

ok ive gone off the path now, which would give a bigger increse in performance? the ram or the cpu? (667 ram i think now)

Usually a processor upgrade would yield the best performance, especially if you already have a DDR2-667 memory kit. But you will be getting just as much performance (if not slightly more) out of the RAM capacity upgrade (from a 1GB total to 2GB) rather than the speed upgrade (667MHz to 800MHz).

[qazwsx]

thanks for the advise, i'll have think about it.. i regret rushing out and getting the pentium D now, should have waited, prices of core 2's droped loads after I bought it.

Also, the X6800, (little out of my budget) whats so good about it making it nealy £600? isnt it just a higher clocked core 2 in a black box?

[gvblake22]

Originally Posted by qazwsx

Also, the X6800, (little out of my budget) whats so good about it making it nealy £600? isnt it just a higher clocked core 2 in a black box?

It is from Intel's "EXtreme Edition" line and besides just being clocked higher, I believe it also has a completely unlocked multiplier. But the unlocked multiplier is only desirable if you are doing extreme overclocking, so you would probably never have a need for the higher multipliers.