Windows 7: Upgrade advice

Hey guys,

Currently I have a Pentium D 820 with 3 GB of DDR2 667 RAM installed. I want to upgrade but don't want to spend that much money. I would like to get an i7 but I can't afford that however, this Pentium D is really getting old and starting to show its age so I'm thinking of putting in a stopgap upgrade, at least until I fully upgrade in about a year and a half.

I've picked out an Asus LGA 775 Motherboard and a Pentium Dual-Core E6600 3.06 Ghz so I can reuse the current RAM I have installed along with all my existing internal and external devices.

Motherboard: Newegg.com - ASUS P5QL/EPU LGA 775 Intel P43 ATX Intel Motherboard
CPU: Newegg.com - Intel Pentium E6600 Wolfdale 3.06GHz 2MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor BX80571E6600

Do you guys think this would be a decent stopgap upgrade to boost performance to more modern levels or could I pick out something better (keeping it under $200 and reusing my current RAM)? Any and all suggestions are welcome and appreciated. Thanks.

The LGA775 series is obsolete. I would recommend a Phenom x4 with an 890X motherboard for a decent brand new system.

Presently I have one of two options available here for salvaging the last case where the board went poof for the AM2 model cpu with 4gb of DDR2 800 memory. Some newer AM3/AM2+/AM2 compatible boards will still run the cpu and memory but not the PCIe 1.0 video card presently in!

The options which include a 3rd not preferred are:
1)locate replacement for board(now discontinued)
2)Toss the video card for a new PCIe 2.0 model and keep the cpu and memory
3)Gut the case entirely and build all new from scratch after already building a brand new case in use.

The 3rd option using a new micro atx case is already in the works but as an upgrade for someone else. The first option can just about be ruled out since the one board(used) was outbid for fast on EBay when only one for a reasonable price was seen especially used.

Your best option? That depends on how your present system is running. Your smart move would be holding off even keeping that as a possible spare case later and investing the money you would(waste?) towards a much newer build you will be satisfied with in the long run.

The best option presently are looking over the summer clearances for the latest hardwares for seeing only a partial upgrade. Upgrading out of the Pentium cpu into a Core 2 would be a fast upgrade of cpu or opting to look over the specials now being seen for AM3 as NTFS was leading to there.

If you are not looking to upgrade into a fast gaming build the prices for Atholon II 3.1ghz and 3.2ghz AMD dual core models are real low at this time especially at newegg for a fast basic upgrade. Why spend $180- for a cpu when you can get one for around $65?!

You could probably find a cheaper board on newegg. I remember looking at the Wolfdales on there (seeing how much it would cost to upgrade my dads computer just for the fun of it) and a couple of them had special combo deals where you could get a better mobo for cheap with that particular CPU. Might want to look around some more and see what you can find in terms of combo deals.

You caught me at the right time for this, I have been looking at hardware a lot lately:

If on a tight budget, here's are reasonable picks:

Newegg.com - ASRock 770 EXTREME3 AM3 AMD 770 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
Newegg.com - AMD Phenom II X4 945 Deneb 3.0GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor HDX945WFGMBOX

If that $140 for the CPU is too much, drop to:
Newegg.com - AMD Athlon II X3 445 Rana 3.1GHz 3 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM3 95W Triple-Core Desktop Processor ADX445WFGMBOX

DDR3 RAM wise, any 1600 rated 2x2 sticks should do you fine, like this:
Newegg.com - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL7D-4GBRM
good starting point, a little more than cheapest, but CAS 7 rated.

That will make you a very good system, not AWESOME, but very good!

X3's won't be good for heavy encoding, and the 770 chipset is outdated.

NTFS, he's looking to upgrade on the cheap, I know that stuff is not top flight.

I myself might wind up with something more like this soon:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131658

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115225

But those 2 are double what I showed him, thus not tight budgety fare.

Agreed, but you don't build a PC every day and looking for cheap parts makes no sense. As for those links, I'd build a Thuban 1090T; but then I've only built AMD, so I'm biased.

As best I understood it, I thought PCIe 2.0 slots were backwards compatible with PCIe 1.x cards, isn't that the case?

As far as CPUs, I've thought about AMD but every time I mull over the option, I keep thinking I'm going to regret it as opposed to going with an Intel CPU. I'm upgrading this current machine for some light gaming but mostly media (audio/video) and some light video editing; the plan is eventually to take this current machine and use it as a secondary machine as I would build a brand new Core i7 machine as the main box and keep this older machine as a secondary.

And NTFS, what a coincidence, two or three of my colleagues are like you and have only built AMD PCs. Much like you, I'm biased as well except I've only built Intel PCs.

Whose looking for cheap, I am looking for balance, I spent hours looking at reviews and other sites reviews of hardware, that X3 445 is excellent for a typical user, not us 3d gaming addicted chuckleheads.

i7s supposedly are superior to the AMDs right now. i7s get rather confusing, 1156 i7s and 1366 i7s are not created equal, and how important is TDP to you, the techie babble never ends.

I am hoping to have my wife's PC survive long enough for the i7-950s to drop to $300ish range, where they aint atm, but that's just me.

I am totally biased toward which CPU is at the best price point when I am buying...