Does this ~$250 upgrade make sense?

[igedit]

Hello everyone, I'm new to the AT forums (been visiting the site for a long time). Before I ask my question, a little background may be in order:

- current rig is XP2500+, NForce 2 mobo, Nvidia 6600 (AGP), 1 GB DDR RAM, IDE drives
- I don't overclock
- I'm not a 'hardcore' gamer, though do enjoy the occasional F.E.A.R., Farcry, etc. and am currently into Guildwars
- I generally game at 1024 x 768 or 1152 x 864

I am looking for a modest upgrade and wanted some opinions. My idea was to buy the Asrock board and a Core 2 E6300. This would allow me to use my current RAM, AGP card, and IDE drives (w/o some SATA adapters).

I understand a PCI-e GPU would be a good idea, but that would require a new mobo anyway. Would this upgrade give me $250 worth of a performance increase for the few games I play plus general tasks like video encoding, CD-ripping, web-surfing, etc.?

TIA for any insight.

 

[BlingBlingArsch]

well...i can understand that ud like to say good bye to that Athlon but keep in mind that
1. assrock boards are not the n1 choice if u want a stable and hassle free rig
2. there are no reviews on that specific asrock DDR1 AGP board and its performance
3. ur 6600gt will stay the systems bottleneck in games i guess

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2797&p=19

 

[igedit]

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I read the article.

My idea was that the Asrock board is cheap and would allow me to upgrade incrementally. A few months down the road, I could upgrade my GPU to PCIe. A few months later I could go to DD2, and a few months later get SATA drives, etc. and still have everything work in the mean time.

By that time, I could replace the Asrock, if need be, with something of higher quality for <$100.

So, you think the E6300 + 6600 will not be $250 faster than my XP2500 + 6600?

Maybe someone will have reviews of the newer CPU's with mid/low GPU's like mine (though I'm not going to hold my breath)

 

[Vinnybcfc]

I dont think the cpu will help vast amounts for gaming unless the GPU is upgraded or overclocked which understandbly you do not want to do

The asrock board is a concern because it might not have a true agp port (it could be a 2 x pci one)

This would leave you in the s*** as gaming performance would be worse because the card is only running at 2x and is does not have agp features like gart

It is highly likely that the board has a 8x (true) agp socket but you cant count on this and it needs to be checked up

Edit:

Didnt see the article at 1st about it but it doesnt answer the question about the agp port

 

[coolpurplefan]

toms hardware has some cpu benchmarks with games

 

[igedit]

Originally posted by: coolpurplefan
toms hardware has some cpu benchmarks with games

Thanks, I checked out their Interactive CPU charts and it looks like I might have found my answer.

When they used a 6800 GT, it appears that the XP3200 is ~20% faster than my 2500. Also, reviews on Conroe have shown that an e6300 is comparable to an X2 4600. And the X2 4600 is ~ 30% faster than the 3200.

Therefore, it looks like the e6300 will be ~ %50 faster than my 2500, using a 6800 gt (which is closer to my GPU than the $500 ones used in the Conroe benchmarks)

Sound about right?