P5W DH Deluxe, Intel E6600 Dual Core, 2GB DDR2 Memory... worth upgrading or scrapping? Looking for best bang for $$$

legend1011

Honorable
Sep 2, 2013
15
0
10,510
Hello,

First off, I built this entire system in September 2006 and it was high-end at that time. Time has flown and it is already 2013 and this system is fairly ancient now. This is what I'm looking for: 1) Not the latest and greatest. I don't want to pay to be bleeding edge. I'm perfectly fine buying a few years old technology provided it is not overpriced. 2) is this P5W DH Deluxe worth maxing out?. I realize the DDR2 ram is overpriced for what it is. how about upgrading to the Q6600 processor? Is it worth it? 3) Should I just abandon this motherboard entirely?

I need some help being steered in the right direction. I'm not much of a gamer, but I enjoy multi monitor displays. I primarily plan on setting up multiple virtual machines so a large amount of memory should be a must.

MAIN QUESTION: Is upgrading this a wise cost-effective choice?

Here is the current configuration; (NO OVERCLOCKING)

Quick Summary and purchase prices in 09/2006:
Case: P180B Antec Case (I will need to replace 1-2 fans) ($129.99)
Motherboard: Asus P5W DH Deluxe/WIFI-AP ($269.99)
Processor: E6600 Core 2 Duo Conroe 2.4Ghz ($360.00)
Ram: 2GB G.Skill Memory DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) ($259.99)
Video: MSI ATI Radeon X1900XTX PCI-E card 512MB ($426.99)
Hard Drive: Seagate Baracuda 7200.10 320GB SATA 3.0GB ($99.99)
DVD Drive: Lite-On 16x DVD+R SHM-165P6S ($34.50)
Extras: Zalman VF900 Video Card Cooler ($37.99)

I appreciate any help, thank you!
 
Solution
P5W DH. Boy does that bring back memories. Built a system based on that board in August 2006.

Honestly. You may be able to build a cheap i3/i5 system instead. I am not sure about you P5W, but mine did NOT overclock that well(seemed worse with the Q6600 than the E6600 for overclocking).

Anyway, my recommendation is to build a new mid level system because it will be better and may cost less than finding older parts for that system.

To add to this systems are more power friendly than ever now.

I am sure the system can use used for something else like a file server or even a router/gateway :)
P5W DH. Boy does that bring back memories. Built a system based on that board in August 2006.

Honestly. You may be able to build a cheap i3/i5 system instead. I am not sure about you P5W, but mine did NOT overclock that well(seemed worse with the Q6600 than the E6600 for overclocking).

Anyway, my recommendation is to build a new mid level system because it will be better and may cost less than finding older parts for that system.

To add to this systems are more power friendly than ever now.

I am sure the system can use used for something else like a file server or even a router/gateway :)
 
Solution

legend1011

Honorable
Sep 2, 2013
15
0
10,510


[I appreciate your thoughts! I'm a little bummed to retire this machine considering I never "maxed" it out, but if it makes more sense to put my money into newer parts then that is the direction I will head... Guess I will start researching mid-level prices to find something that I will need. Any parts in the sweet spot your recommend? Thank You[/i]
 
For the price, I always found the 5770/6770 to be a good card(mid level settings). Now I am sure the 7770 or Nvidia equivalents are even better.

I have a GTX 650 ti in my media center(i5 750) and it works well, but is not a high end card(nice and quiet with lower power draw at idle and video playback. decent game performance for sure).

As always, Check this out
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107.html
and
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106.html

I personally find for a gaming system, sticking i5 over i7(hyper threading does not help most games at this time) is a good way to save some money.

Sticking to the middle gives you good performance/price/power consumption as well. Bleeding end performance cost much more per frame.

A board with a single PCI-E slot tends to be cheaper as well if you have no plans to go multi card.

Do not count out AMD either, for the price, it may just be what you are looking for.
 

legend1011

Honorable
Sep 2, 2013
15
0
10,510
Thanks everyone. After looking at the prices of DDR2 ram compared to DDR3, I have decided to work on replacing the CPU, Motherboard, and RAM. I had originally planned on adding SATAIII SSD and HD to my board so this eliminates the need for a SATAIII to PCI adapter. Now I am having a hard time determining what it is I need
 
A PCI card would have had rather poor performance for SSD's anyway. and the boards PCI-E slots would both drop to x8 with a pci-e adapter.

If you start a new build thread, you will have more options than you can shake a stick at.

If you want to do that, post in this section and check out some of the stickied threads for systems as well.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/forum-31.html

as well as *How to Ask for New Build or Upgrade Advice* that has a nice format for making a thread for building a new system.
 

legend1011

Honorable
Sep 2, 2013
15
0
10,510


Thank You!. I started a new post in the "Systems" forum:
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1789818/build-stages-performance-price-hard-time-figuring.html#11478066

Thank you so much for your help.