Is it worth it?

[piranha]

Is it worth it to upgrade my Intel Core 2 Duo, 1.86GHZ processor to a 2.4GHZ Intel Core 2 Duo? Or should I get a Intel Core 2 Quad?
Maybe I would be best to just buy another 1GB memory card?

What do you guy's think?

[frank]

Well the amount of memory usually does make a huge difference. Anything you can do to reduce the amount of paging is always a good thing. About the processor upgrade, what type of applications are you planning on running? A quad core with the same clock speed as a dual core is only going to out perform it with tasks that a parallel (video processing, music encoding). Games would benefit more from a higher clock speed then more cores (except for the new ones that take advantage of parallel processing.) I would get whatever I could afford at the highest clock speed available.

[JAAman]

all you mentioned was the clock speed -- the clock speed is irrelevent (more or less) as there are other factors which make a big difference (model numbers would have been more helpful)

since you didnt specify, im going to assume you are talking about moving from an E6300 to an E6600: (if you have, for example a E6320, this changes my answer)


going up, you will double your L2 cache -- which is much more important (imo) than the additional clock speed, you do also get a better clock on that as well

though, if your MB supports it, i would recommend going with the E6750 instead (my price, its actually about $15 less) as it has an even higher clock, and a higher FSB (very important) -- however, it will require a MB which can use a 1333 FSB (many cant -- esp older ones)


however

Maybe I would be best to just buy another 1GB memory card?

you didnt specify, but you imply that you only have 1GB of RAM? i would definitely double that before thinking about any CPU upgrade



my recommendation:

if you have less than 2GB RAM, upgrade that
if your CPU is the E6300 (and not the E6320), then upgrade your CPU (get the E6600 if your MB cannot support 1333FSB, or get the E6650/E6750 if it can)
if your CPU is a E6320 (or otherwise has the full 4MB L2) then unless your doing a lot of CPU intense activities (in which case you probably already know what you need), there are probably more important things to upgrade/improve)

[piranha]

I have 2 GB of RAM. Also, my MB will support up to 1,066 FSB and nothing higher.

[JAAman]

in that case, moving to 3GB of RAM will drop you out of dual-channel mode (im assuming you are currently using dual-channel mode)

Also, my MB will support up to 1,066 FSB and nothing higher.

thats expected, being that the 1333 FSB is still fairly new... you can still get the E6750 and underclock it to a 1066 FSB, (though you will get a lower clock speed also), as in some cases the E6750 may be cheaper than the E6600 (from my primary supplier it is), however, the real question is what are you doing with it

for most people i would say its not worth upgrading at this point (more so if you have the E6320), but it really depends on what you do

if you spend a lot of time doing video encoding, or playing the latest FPSs then you might want to upgrade, however if you spend most of your time online, or writing code, then a better CPU isnt really going to help you too much (if your doing 'normal' stuff, and still getting serious performance issues, then you probably have other problems -- software issues you can fix without replacing hardware most likely)