Which CPU?

[betasub]

There is an i5-560M for notebooks, which may be adding to the confusion.

Celeron 560, i3-560, i5-650, i5-560M, yeah, you can say I'm confused!

 

[jihe]

Don't take this wrong- I don't mean to be negative or to harp on you.

There is no such thing as future-proofing in the computer world- especially three years out.

When the future comes, there will be things you don't, or can't imagine wanting right now. Data will travel on photons instead of electrons, SSDs will store your data, and your MB will house your OS.

Just buy the best you wish to pay for today.

That Q6600 three years ago still looks good today.

 

[DrMrLordX]

That Q6600 three years ago still looks good today.

I suspect that Gulftowns will still be looking pretty good three years from launch as well. Maybe not fantastic, but man, that is a lot of processing power.

For $900+, it'd better be.

 

[FishAk]

The Q6600 started life in Jan 07 over $1000 retail, and peaked at over $2000. But within 6 months, it had fallen below $400. The price hasn't moved much since Oct 08, and you're still looking at about $200 for this chip. It has done well “in the future”


Likewise, my PSU has worked quite well for some time, and I'll bet it's adequate for my needs for several years to come.


Neither of these examples represent future proof components, although they in fact, did do well in the future. There was simply no way to be certain that they would perform as required down the road. If the i7 had plugged into the 775 socket, the Q6600 would be worthless today. If, as in my case, a needed program is updated to take advantage of hyperthreading, and it works OK on the Q6600, but excellent on the i7; the Q6600 suddenly isn't so desirable. As for my PSU, Al Gore may be on the verge of directing Sun beams directly into my computer.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

Sorry, I gave you misleading information. What I have is AMD Phenom II 945. This is the spec that I have: 4 gigs of DDR 3 Ram. My motherboard is a Gigabyte 770TA-UD3 I know for a fact that my motherboard is quite a good spec. From what I can gather; should I keep it; or is it possible to upgrade it?

Thanks

If you are being given the Intel processor for free, take it, sell it and invest in a SSD. The performance difference isn't worth buying a mobo for.

Or if you want more CPU plan to upgrade to an AMD X6... and save the money.