Buying a quad core chip

ignatzatsonic said:

Take another shot of CPU-Z showing the processor tab. Or give us a shot showing some other app that reveals as much detail as possible about your current processor. I suspect you are out of luck.

If you need a new board, you may run into difficulty on a Dell due to proprietary connectors. Dell used some of those in the past and may still.

If you need a new board and want to go to a quad, your path of least resistance is probably to start from the ground up with a new case, motherboard, RAM, and power supply. You may be able to reuse DVD drive, hard drive, monitor, keyboard, mouse, sound card, and maybe the video card.

But if you would be willing to pay for a quad, the better route may be to go to an i5 or i7 processor from Intel--socket 1366 or 1156, rather than 775. The i5 is particularly attractive and can use relatively inexpensive motherboards.

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ignatzatsonic said:

I can't confirm it quickly, but I think you are out of luck with that motherboard and anything from the Intel Core 2 Duo series or later. Core 2 Duo is socket 775 like Pentium D, but I don't think you can just drop it in.

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ignatzatsonic said:

Intel has recently become very confusing on their naming.

i7 is socket 1156 and socket 1366, quad core, uses triple channel DDR 3 memory, Hyperthreading
i5 is strictly 1156. both dual and quad core, dual channel DDR 3 memory, no Hyperthreading
i3 is strictly 1156, only dual core, no hyperthreading


best way to look at is the numbers assigned to the processors:

900 series will be i7, socket 1366; all are quadcore; hyperthreading; i don't think they have turbo
800 series will be i7, socket 1156; all are quadcore; hyperthreading and turbo
700 series will be i5, socket 1156; all are quadcore; hyperthreading, no turbo
600 series will be i5, socket 1156; all are dual core; hyperthreading and turbo
500 series will be i3, socket 1156; all are dual core; hyperthreading, no turbo

I'm not sure how many of the 600s and 500s are out yet.

Advantage of the 700s and 800s is that the socket 1156 motherboards are noticeably cheaper.

The i5 and i7 use DDR 3 memory. Not sure about i3.

Best bang for the buck: i5 series by most estimates.

If you are going to change boards, I would automatically ditch the Dell case and power supply.

Quad cores don't necessarily equate to a faster PC, depending on what you want to do with it. Many applications can't properly take advantage of all 4 cores and a dual core may be faster at any given price point, depending on your intended usage.

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ignatzatsonic said:

You are not going to like this.

I would never give Dell another dime, but they are still probably the best choice if you aren't going to build yourself or if you don't have a RELIABLE local builder.

I bought a Dell monitor about 5 years ago, with a 3 year warranty. It went bad at 2.5 years. It took me 11 phone calls to India to get it replaced. I had to tell my complete story every time, as if they had no database at all. I was promised callbacks continually and never got one. Inexcusable. I will never give Dell another dime.

Having said that----I'd still tell most people to use them because I don't know of anyone else who is better. Your hardware can always go bad, just by bad luck. Nearly everyone has outsourced customer service. The profit margins on PCs are very small compared to what they were 10 or 15 years ago when the average PC sold for $2,000 or more. So they now cut corners and customer service gets the knife first.

Build it yourself if at all possible. You have 100% control of components and will learn a lot. Normally, you can't save any money any more, but because you have some components to carry over, you could save a few hundred bucks--maybe blow that on an SSD or a big monitor or a new set of tires.

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