4600 stock vs 2160 OC for gaming rig

Take this advise from me :
Upgrade when u really dont get the performance u need, X2 4600 @ 2.5 is a good CPU for gaming

E2160/E2180 are solid CPUs and are known as good OC'ers and most of them go up to 3.0GHZ or even more BUT are u really unhappy with your rig?

I should have added.

The foxconn has no problems running 400fsb and has been reported to hit 555fsb by pcstats. At 400fsb with 9x multi the chip would be rippin it up @3.6ghz but probably as high as it's capable of running. I'd recommend 400fsb with 8x multi for 3.2ghz and if it dies within a year? So what? It be a great reason to upgrade to what in the future will be a cheap 45nm chip.

I agree to a certain extent, but an e2160 running at 3.2ghz will be noticably faster at everything and he current mobo is still running old DDR (not DDR2). The DDR2-800 memory will actually be almost 50% faster with the higher headroom and nearly identical block switch timing.

I wouldn't recommend a budget P35 board, but I would recommend something with the x38 chipset since it offers all the latest features and the ability to use a dirt cheap processor that overclocks like a beast. The only problem is that most of the other x38 boards make you choose DDR2 or DDR3 at the time of purchase. DDR3 just isn't worth the price atm.

Basically it's not worth upgrading from a decent AMD setup to an aging Intel chipset such as a P35 board. However, if you are planning to upgrade the CPU 1-2 times along with the graphics cards or to DDR3 memory in the case of the foxconn board then it would be worth the ($300.00) expense of swaping the board, cpu and memory.

e2160 - 70 bucks
x38a - 200 bucks
DDR2 - 30 bucks

They are not, you would see a bit of an increase. But, it won't be astounding. Probably manage 10-20% increase in performance. Which isn't shabby. It is just up to you if you wanted to spend the money...

Since you already upgraded the video card you can probably hold off on upgrading to an intel chipset if money is a concern.

You could also try browsing through some 3dmark06 scores for PCs with your graphics card combined with an overclocked 2160. Compare the resutls to yours and decide if it's financially worth the switch. However, I still advise againt switching to a P35 board (or 6xx nvidia board) since it's an aging platform.

Keep in mind that 3dmark06 is a processor dependant benchmark so your actual FPS gains would not be the same % gains you see in 3dmark06 scores, but it's the most widely used benchmark for comparing the gaming power of PCs.