E6550 vs E6500

[grekan]

I need some help choosing, I recently realized I had enough spare DDR2, HDD, GPU, etc to make a new computer for the gf, the only thing I'm missing is a MOBO/CPU for her. Now this sounds easy enough, but the new cheap chips look pretty sweet and now I'm wondering if I shouldn't keep the new chip/mobo and pass on my old one.

Current Chip/Mobo:
Asus P5K P35 FSB up to 1333, DDR2-800, PCIe 1.1

Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 2.33Ghz 1333FSB L2 4Mb

Look at buying:

Gigabyte GA-EP43-UD3L Socket 775 Intel P43 + ICH10 FSB Up to 1600, DDR2-1066, PCIe 2.0

Intel Penitum Dual Core E6500 2.93Ghz 1066FSB L2 2MB

My personal GPU is a BFG 8800 GTS 512 (PCIe 2.0)

So my questions:
1. Is the new chip&board better than my old one? The old one I won't O.C. I don't trust it, the mobo gets too hot as is. Whereas the new one I might(likely) O.C. it.

2. Is it worth switching just to get rid of the P35 (interferes with HalfLife2 games) and getting a PCIe 2.0 vs 1.1?

3. Should I just keep my current set up and pass this new mobo/chip to the gf?

Thanks.

 

[hosereh]

Keep your current Cpu with the new mobo , and pass on the old board with new CPU. The E6550 is a great overclocker , i had the e6750 and got it to 3.2 with little issue ,the new mobo will be better for over clocking.

 

[aquicl]

I see no point in that upgrade unless you get if for free.
PCI-E 1.1 slots are compatible with PCI-E 2.0 and 2.1 cards. And nearly no card uses the full potential of even pci-e 1.1 , so you won't notice any improvement if you upgrade to PCI-e 2.0

LGA775 (core2duo, Quad and like) is already outdated.

Save money and upgrade to i3/i5/i7 if you prefer Intel or to AMD Phenom II (my preference).

 

[grekan]

Haha, I thought this was dead, I passed both the new chip and board to the gf, and will be getting myself AMD Phenom II X4 965 and some DDR3 ram, and a 790FX or 980a based board. Both of which have 2 full PCI-E 2.0 X16 slots. Ultimately the gf will get most of the old stuff, except she'll keep the new board. Thanks though. And the upgrade for her was just building a Dual Core system, as her old P4 just wasn't hackin it anymore.

 

[grekan]

Best answer selected by grekan.