Upgrade advice

[Arterion]

Approximately 15 minutes ago something in my PC died- pretty sure it's the RAM- and refuses to wake up. I figure this is as good a time as any to get an upgrade.

Having looked at various retail sites i've found that the E6600 and X2 6000+ are around the same price point, and I spent a long time perusing the benchmarks over at Tom's Hardware only to find that there seem to be very little in it in terms of performance- so, which one do I go for and why? Advice much appreciated!

 

[K404]

I`d probably say the E6600. I saw the comparison chart as well...I was kinda surprised by the results, but the E6600 is overall a better chip and will probably OC further, easier.

 

[Arterion]

I wasn't really planning on overclocking to be honest, my main concern was future upgradeablility; i'm not sure what to expect from the AM2 or LGA775 platforms over the next year or so...

 

[K404]

CPUs and Boards:

AM2 socket will support AM2+ chips, but at slightly reduced performance. Eventually I suspect AMD will fully move to socket 1207+. AMDs next lot of stuff will co-exist on PGA 940 and LGA 1207 before eventually all moving to LGA 1207. I *think*

Intels 45nm chips need either 680I or P35 boards. I suspect nV wont work on BIOS updates for the 650 boards, but dont hold me to that.

RAM:

DDR2 will be on Intel boards probably until the end of this year. AMD will use DDR2 until next Summer I *think*

Graphics:

PCI-E2.0 is coming soon which is backwards compatable- current PCI-E cards will work on PCI-E2.0 boards but PCI-E2.0 cards will not work on PCI-E boards. The power setup is totally different.

 

[Arterion]

So then i'm probably better off going AM2, at least for the next 12 months or so?

 

[K404]

Because of the DDR3 aspect to Intel, AM2 probably wins but I cant say where AMD will take their socket plans, or when.

Future-proof is safely still a myth though

 

[Arterion]

Ok, so how does this look;

Abit K9N nForce Ultra

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+

Corsair 2Gb DDR2 XMS2-6400C5 TwinX (2x1Gb)

Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB SATA-II 16MB Cache

Comes out at ~£280; I would go for the 6000+ but i'm i'm not sure it's worth paying £30 for the sake of the 200MHz which I can probably clock myself...

 

[K404]

Cant really go wrong I reckon

 

[Arterion]

Ok, well my PC now seems to be working- not sure for how long mind- so i'm gonna be putting this off, hopefully til we get some more concrete info about AMD's new chip line and the future of Intel. Someone tried to tell me yesterday that AMD have gone bust...