Is it worth upgrading the CPU on this computer?

[mallic1]

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo e4300
MB: Evga nForce 680i SLI
Vid: Evga Geforce 8800GTX 768MB
Mem: 4 Gigabytes DDR2 800 RAM
OS: Vista 64 (probably upgrade to Win7 soon)

This is my current computer. I built it a few years ago and, at the time, I felt like the CPU was the weak spot that I might upgrade in the future. Would updating the CPU to a e8500 make any sense? I had my eye on a q9400 but it seems my board won’t support it even though they are both socket 775. Anyway, I’ve always suspected the e4300 holds back the video card but I’ve never been able to confirm that. I’d love to hear any opinions.

Thanks!

 

[saaiello]

If you upgrade to anything make it a Quad so your only option would be a Q6600 which are fairly decent and will make a nice upgrade they overclock pretty good too. You can find them on Ebay for around $100 if you can find the like of a QX6700 or a QX6800 for a decent price that would even be better.

 

[mallic1]

If you upgrade to anything make it a Quad so your only option would be a Q6600 which are fairly decent and will make a nice upgrade they overclock pretty good too. You can find them on Ebay for around $100 if you can find the like of a QX6700 or a QX6800 for a decent price that would even be better.

Thanks for the reply Saaillo. Do you think that the Q6600 would improve game performance or is the video card carrying the load either way? I don't mind spending the $100 so long as there will be some benefit to gaming. Otherwise, I may as well stick with the e4300 until I retire the machine entirely. I've never fully understood the relationship that the CPU has with gaming.

 

[saaiello]

The e4300 is one of the oldest core 2s and are really slow even if you overclocked it to its max a Q6600 at stock will kill the 4300 in gaming. The 8800GTX is a really solid card and should still give you plenty of performance.

You should see tons of improvement and you will also be able to overclock the Q6600 to 3GHZ at least most get 3.4 3.5 ghz out of those chips which will give some great game play I say go for it you wont be sorry. For even more performance find another 8800GTX and run SLI that will keep you going good for a year or two easy.