Upgrade Advice

[RaiderNation]

I have been considering my annual PC upgrade.

Here are the options I am looking at:

E6600 Core2Duo --> Q6600 Quad Core (Approx $ 300)

ATI X1800XT --> 8800 GTS 512 MB (Maybe SLI) (Approx $ 300)

2 GB PC6400 CL4-4-4-15 --> 4 GB PC6400 CL5-4-4-15 (Approx $ 100)

I will keep the Commando MB, and either take the components and try to sell them, or build a 2nd PC with them.

Form what I have read, the video card upgrade is a no-brainer, as the 8800GTS blows the X1800XT away, and for less than $ 100, to go from 2 GB to 4 GB seems to be also a good option, but is the CPU upgrade going to make that much of a difference ?

Thanks for the input.

[k0NG0]

If you do a lot of stuff that benefits from more cores then yes, it will make a significant difference. Otherwise, no.

What that "stuff" is, well, for the most part scientific calculations, lots of code compilation etc. are usually easily parallelizable. Some games can utilize more cores as they're available too. Folding will gladly use up more cores, since you can run a WU per core.

If your usage doesn't fall into those categories, and you upgrade annually, it would be better to get a faster dual-core. If in a year you find you'd benefit from more cores, you can go for quad-core then.