CPU recommendations

[DirtyMetis]

Hello all--

Looking to do a mild upgrade on my aging Dell Dimension 4600 (P4 2.8). Primarily use the system for some graphic design work (mostly PS and Illustrator) and a bit of gaming (WoW, occassional FPS). Was considering going with a 775Dual-VSTA as it'll let me reuse my 2 gigs of DDR and my AGP 6800, with a bit of room to grow yet as the budget allows down the line. Would love to swing for one of them fancy new Conroe's, but don't think I can stomach more than $200 on the CPU. Any suggestions on a decent CPU that'll give me a bit of performance over my current P4 2.8 and tide me over until Conroe's come down in price (or compelling arguements for going for the Conroe now if you're so inclined)?

Many thanks!

 

[bibitob]

If you don't want to spend too much, I say stay with your current P4. I have the same exact CPU and I never notice any slowdown with anything I use. Maybe your bottleneck is somewhere else?

-B

 

[Evilhomer99]

The Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Is about $180 most places and the 6400 is about $220. Both are really good. But AMD chips and mobos are really cheap and still good.

 

[GFORCE100]

I thought it's public knowledge by now. You cannot install a standard motherboard in a DELL because a) the screwns are in different places , b) the power supply is wired differently and c) the back I/O on the case is different.

A Dell is a Dell, not an everyday PC made by the guy down the street.

 

[Evilhomer99]

Ya, you may be better off getting a cheap barebones or a case and transplanting some parts from your dell.

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: GFORCE100
I thought it's public knowledge by now. You cannot install a standard motherboard in a DELL because a) the screwns are in different places , b) the power supply is wired differently and c) the back I/O on the case is different.

A Dell is crap, not an everyday PC made by the guy down the street.

Exactly

Actually i thought there were some Dells that had standard mobos...i guess not.

 

[DirtyMetis]

Heh, yeah, I'm not that hopeless folks - guess I shoulda specified!

Already have a new case/PSU for the upgrade - basically all I'm stripping out of the old Dell is my HD's, Optical Drives, GeForce 6800 AGP, 2 sticks of DDR, and SB Audigy 2 - essentially all the NON-DELL stuff!

I'm all too well aware of the whole Dell incompatable case, PSU, etc. Appreciate the advice though, probably safe to assume that most Dell owners wouldn't know.

So how 'bout it folks - am I gonna see much of a difference between a Pentium D 804 @ 3.2Ghz for about $120 AR and a Core 2 Duo E6400 @ ~$220? Worth twice the price? Any ideas what types of speeds I could expect to eek out of the 6400 with the 775Dual-VSTA? (Not a stellar OC'r board I know, but every little bit helps)

Again, thanks for the feedback, keep it coming!

 

[Skeeedunt]

There's a good VSTA thread over in the CPU forum you should check out. Overclocks are pretty mild, for an e6400 something like 2.13GHz->2.4GHz.

With a geforce 6800 you will see pretty slim performance gains in games. The board is a good way to transition to PCI-e though