Windows 7 Upgrade Advice

[karachidude]

Hello guys,

i m thinking of upgrading my system and i would appreciate and love some advice.

My situation:
I m not a gaming person,but would like to enjoy some of them after i get one of these,but not like a hardcore
gamer.I want a upgrade which wont choke on more than 1 OS's,and would let me play games smoothly like the
Need for Speed Shift,and let me install and check out and test all the software i want.

The following are in consideration:
Processors:

INTEL CORE 2 DUO E8500 3.16Ghz (6MB CACHE - 1333Mhz FSB) (This one is RS(Pakiastan currency) 16500 here)

INTEL CORE 2 QUAD Q9550 2.83Ghz (12MB CACHE - 1333Mhz FSB) (This one is RS 20400 here)

AMD AM2 PHENOM II 64 X4 940 (8MB CACHE 3Ghz) (This one is Rs 22300 here)

Motherboards:

INTEL DG35EC (LGA775-SND+AGP+GIGA LAN-1333MHZ FSB) PCX SLOT (This one is RS 6600 here)

I dont know much about mother boards,so some insight would be use full.

I want to ask if theres a big difference performance wise between Core2Duo and Core2Quad,and which one should
buy.

Any kind of recommendation or insight in assemling a new PC would be welcome.



K'dude

 

[reghakr]

Yes, Drew is right about the partitioned setup or a separate hard drive.

Please do not do an upgrade, do a "clean" install.

 

[karachidude]

thanks Drew and Reghark for the info...much appreciated,if i have any other question i wll ask here.

thanks

 

[reghakr]

Drew,

Just wondering why you run defrag after a new installation?

 

[BigPava]

I Agree

I agree with drew, depending on what you are doing the E8500 is nice for gaming and what not but for $20 or $30 more you can have twice the L2 cache on the Q9550 and a couple more cores. also you might want to look into a nice Core i5 setup as this will future proof you for a little longer for around the same price as getting a Q9550 setup. good luck

 

[karachidude]

yes i think i wll go for the Quad,hopefully i wll have the money...i5 combined with the Motherboard,and i think it uses
DDR3 natively is pretty expensive,though the processor alone is not.

Any suggestion about which Motherboard i should buy,for the Quad or Duo?

 

[BigPava]

Core i5/i7

On newegg you can get an i5 setup with board, core i5, and DDR3 2000mhz ram for anywhere from $450 to $500 on a combo buy, but if you're going LGA 775 than a P45 board is good they are cheap and decent overclockers DDR3 is becoming cheaper than DDR2. the board I have is a 780i board and it only supports up to DDR2 1200 and the DDR3 1600 is the same price or cheaper now than DDR2 1066 or 1200. just look at the specs of the board and compare it to what you want. IMO the P45's are nice and you should be able to run that chipset and a Q9550 for a couple years before an upgrade to what ever they'll have out then. I like to stay a set behind for prices but right now the core i5 is nicely priced with boards (P55 mobo), core i5, and DDR3 for the same price as a p45 setup with DDR3 and Q9550. the reason I say core i5 is in a year you might want to go with the core i7 860 with has hyper threading which pretty much gives you an 8 core processor and the P55 board will allow that. good luck

 

[BigPava]

My apologies

I didnt read the part where you are in another country with the Pakistani prices, I would go for what ever is cheaper over there for you. the Q9550 is definitely a nice chip in a P45 board.

 

[karachidude]

thanks a bunch man..i wll keep these things in mind.

thanks gain