Hi All, could somone tell me what the best processor i could get for around £60-£80 i have seen some dual core ones around for £60 here.....Intel CPU Pentium 4 D 915 Dual Core 2x2.8GHz 800FSB LGA775 2x2MB cache Retail inc fan (3yr Manufacturer Warranty) - BX80553915 - www.microdirect.co.uk is it any good is it faster than my one i got now any help would be great thanks.
Well, that would depend on what you're doing right now. Gaming relies more on the video card rather than the CPU, so while a CPU upgrade won't hurt, it won't give you the boost you're looking for. For office apps and web browsing/e-mail, that's not particularly CPU intensive, and unless you run lots of these at once, the dual-core won't benefit you. However, if you're into rendering or do lots of video editing, you may have software that takes advantage of a second CPU or second core, in which case this would be beneficial. Again, it depends on what you do. Anything that relies on pure clock speed will take a performance hit as the clock speed is slower. The general area this gets into is mainly audio production and some mp3 rippers.
hi big b, following up on your reply... in taskman provided the cpu is below 100% when in a game, then your cpu isnt acting as a bottlekneck for performance?.... is this correct cause my cpu reaches a max of about 70 - 80% when IN a game (say, farcry or quake4, COD2 etc) does it mean i dont need to upgrade, or is it cause HT doesnt work correctly with games and the physical cpu is maxed out i only have HT and the left log (in task manager > performance > CPU) displays around 50% usage whereas the right log only shows 35%ish im assuming this is cause HT doesnt work for games and maybe i can benefit by getting a new cpu
Some games, although not many, can take advantage of dual CPU's or a dual-core processor. Otherwise, the OS will load the game between the CPU's or cores. I'd rather have a Sempron 3000+ and a GeForce 7900GT than an Athlon64 5200+ and a GeForce 7300 for gaming. If the video card is a bottleneck, you won't make a gain with a faster CPU.
Well, for GPU's like the 8800 series, the CPU deffenitly is a bottleneck, and a good C2D or an overclocked E6300 would be needed, infact, people with 8800 series graphics cards have reported double FPS increase when upgrading from a similar CPU to mine, or a dual core AMD to a C2D.
