Hi, I had: Intel e4400 Asus P5B 4 GB RAM XFX 8600GT 2x 160GB + 80GB drives dvd-r inside of chieftec dragon full tower with 400w PSU. Never had any problems with it, until I've changed 80gb drive with Samsung F3 1Tb, and 8600 with 9600gso, -- PSU could not handle it. I took 2x 160gb out (one is inside of nettop now). Now I got brand new MSI P34T-C51 motherboard, and want to buy Corsair 650w TX PSU to have freedom for further upgrades. Thinking of getting more ram (up to 6 or 8 GB) and maybe a core2quad 8300 (since there is no point of changing entire computer for i7/DDR3 at the time, or in the next year - and if there is, I don't have the money)... My question is - would I see some improvement in new games and photoshop (photography, 10MP+ images) with additional 2 cores, if 8300 has less L2 cache per core than my current CPU? Would that improvement be visible enough, or I shoud save 130 euros and keep the e4400 CPU for a year more, and invest in better GPU, like Ati 5770 or something...? Thanks in advance!
Well, I have made an error, e4400 also has 1MB L2 cache per core (2MB total) so any Q8x00 would NOT be a downgrade if we look at the L2 cache... But since 8300 does not have support for x64 virtual machines, there is somewhat more expensive 8400 or even 9400... In the long shot, I could save for a Q9550 which has 12MB L2, but do I really need one, or should I overclock my e4400 up to 3 Ghz and buy something else that would have greater improvement on gaming... Oh yeah... my current cpu/gpu are not overclocked and all games I've played are ok for now... that's why I'm not even sure I really need a quad core...
In my opinion, you should squeeze out everything you can from this machine (since it's OK at the moment) as any upgrade would be just a far cry and a waste of money for the long-term. save up and get something nice when you feel that your current machine starts to lag.
