rccola2424

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I am looking for a new system, but I haven't got the money yet, and I just wanted like, a simple 70-80$ dualcore upgrade.
But I dunno....
 

x Heavy

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It will not be a simple dual core upgrade. Dual core will cost you around 250 or so for the Intel CPU and a Socket 775 motherboards are rapidly declining in availibility as gamers progress towards 1366 and 1155 systems.

With that said, I have two socket 775 dual cores and one quad core. When they are retired, I can probably ship you the chip and motherboard for a few dollars in a few years. They are not much good now for gaming anymore. BFBC2 was the last game I specifically went dual and then quad core for. Socket 775 is finished. Long live 1155.
 

mavroxur

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What is the exact processor you have currently? Just because you can't upgrade to a dual core, doesn't mean you can't spend $15-$30 dollars on eBay and get a much faster CPU than you have currently, if yours is a low end P4.
 

Thegeek

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I agree with Mavorxur. If your motherboard can't support a dual core, why not upgrade your single core CPU to one with a better cache size, clock speed and front side bus speed? Assuming you have one that is 533MHz, then upgrade to a 800MHz.
 

Mrthorp

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ebay is a spot to look for new mobos as well. i had an old socket 939 chip i just refused to let go( i know, i know). i was able to pick one up for 25$.
at that time i was also thinking about just buying a used quad core and mobo for a cheaper alternative to new parts upgrade. There are lots of 775 boards on ebay, the nicer ones do get up there in price though. well, up there for a used part.

CPU's on ebay, as the others have suggested, are very inexpensive.
 

mavroxur

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Just out of curiousity, I checked to see what the price would be for the fastest CPU that your motherboard would support, and I found a Pentium 4 670 (3.8GHz, 1MB Cache) for $30. I've seen them in the low 20's before, and i'm sure if you watch for a few days, you can find one too. At 20'ish, it would be a good upgrade if you're running something like *any* Celeron or a lower end P4 (2.8 /533FSB or the like)
 

mavroxur

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There's a big difference between US$20 and US$150. I offered the US$20 as a solution to get him by until he can afford to overhaul the system.
 

rccola2424

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http://ark.intel.com/products/27454/Intel-Pentium-4-Processor-515515J-%281M-Cache-2_93-GHz-533-MHz-FSB%29
That's the EXACT one I have.
Well, i'm sure I could spend a low 50-60 to get a simple 775Socket motherboard that supports dual cores, and get a simple 50$ Celeron Wolfdale 2-core.
 

mavroxur

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You'd notice a difference going to a Pentium 4 670 for sure. Not as much of a difference if you were on a Celeron right now though, but it'd be noticable for sure. One thing, you'd need different RAM too if you were to upgrade your motherboard/CPU. Your current motherboard uses DDR333/DDR400 RAM, which no new desktop motherboard would use. I guess it just boils down to how much money you can part with at the moment. If you can part with $125 or so, i'd just upgrade the whole thing. If you can't, you could drop $20-$30 and get a little more life out of the current rig.
 

rccola2424

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Hm... maybe.