Should I Upgrade My CPU?

W

Waters

New Member
I am planning to upgrade my computer and was wondering if upgrading my CPU would give me the best improvement. I want to either upgrade my CPU, ram, or audio card. I currently have Athlon XP 2400 and 1 gig of ram, sound blaster audigy 2.


Im not sure if dual core would be best for me or not. What i use my computer for mostly is World of Warcraft and school work. I would like to have my computer be a little faster and if I get a new CPU i would like to get a motherboard that supports dual core and stuff when I decide to upgrade in the future. Is this possible? I wasn't sure if I should stay with Athlon or go with Intel or possibly a different upgade.
 
well it seems to me you would need a new CPU, and mobo then and possibility of upgrading to dual core, id go with intel. Like a Pentium D CPU with a mobo that supports C2D sounds good.

what mobo do you have now? and whats your budget?
 
I think my processor is outdated...if i went with dual core it seems like i would need to replace everything...i have a Asus A7n8x.
 
Waters said:
I think my processor is outdated...if i went with dual core it seems like i would need to replace everything...i have a Asus A7n8x.
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if you want to upgrade your cpu then the motherboard has to go with it. i agree with joe on the pd thing, unless you can afford a core2duo now.
 
joeswm8 said:
well it seems to me you would need a new CPU, and mobo then and possibility of upgrading to dual core, id go with intel. Like a Pentium D CPU with a mobo that supports C2D sounds good.

what mobo do you have now? and whats your budget?
Click to expand...

he asked if he could update his CPU not his whole dam computer..

Sure you can upgrade it, if all you do is school work and WoW then you dont really need a Duel core proc. See what type of CPU's newegg has in your socket and go from there.
 
well, he either needs to upgrade the motherboard now or upgrade it later... even changing to another socket A cpu won't last him very long with the way things are going at the moment :D i mean c'mon dual core, quad core, pci-express, 240-pin ddr2 slots... etc...
it needs to happen sooner or later.
of course, i say if its not broke dont fix it. you've got a very balanced system... nothing extremely high end, and if you upgrade the processor then the video card or memory will just bottleneck, save your money and go a bit more all out on building a new computer that way you've got something on back-up... or you could even sell your old tower for however much its worth when u end up upgrading..
 
yeah, your system seems balance now, a bit higher cpu would help, but at about 2400/2600 the prices start to get alot higher, the 3200 is still usually no less than 100bucks....i'd go with what fade2green said, i'd just wait till you can get a better board also, probably a socket 775 system (the boards are generally cheaper with more items (like ddr2,pcie,etc), and many of the processors are affordable...if you sell your 2400 and 6600 you can afford it, there are boards that will allow you to keep your kingston ram also, but if you cant find one sell it (i'd say a decent 80 bucks , is it ddr400 or 333?) and get some cheap ddr2 ram... i'll try to find a good combo now
EDIT:
here are some boards and cpus that will handle AGP and your DDR memory (if the memory isnt ddr400 then you may want to upgrade it though)
#1ECS 661FX-M7 (1.1) Socket T (LGA 775) SiS 661FX Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail $40,$10 MIR
#2PC CHIPS P13G+ (V1.0) Socket T (LGA 775) Intel 865G Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail $43, combo deal with a PD 805 Smithfield, $109 for both ($23 off the cpu), if bought by Jan 31st

These boards have PCIE and DDR2 (for a full upgrade)
#3
JetWay P4M890DMP Socket T (LGA 775) VIA P4M890 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
$51, you cant use your memory or video card with this board

#4BIOSTAR P4M890-M7 PCI-E Socket T (LGA 775) VIA P4M890 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail $53, no vid or mem for this either, but has support for Core 2 Duo in the future for upgrading

If you wanted AMD here is a board....
Foxconn 761GXK8MB-RS Socket 939 SiS 761 GX Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail $40,PCIE , but you can use your same RAM, combo with A64 3200+ for $91 (5bucks saved)

Here are some cpus-
Intel Pentium D 820 Smithfield 2.8GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor - Retail $99 free ship
Intel Pentium 4 531 Prescott 3.0GHz 1MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor - Retail $85 free ship, not dualcore though\

And for the AMD board-
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice 2.2GHz 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 Processor - Retail $74 free ship
AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 2.2GHz 1MB L2 Cache Socket 939 Processor - Retail $88.50 free ship
There are some options for your system , the AMD board is pretty nice, but if you want to really upgrade and have room in the future i'd go with the 775s with PCIE and ddr2....
This is a decent card for your needs-(if u get a PCIE board)
ASUS EAX1300/TD/128M Radeon X1300 128MB 64-bit DDR PCI Express x16 Low Profile Video Card - Retail $50
 
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