Mistake, but, should I? C2D 4600 over my P4 640 HT

Okay, i made a mistake. I bought an Nvidia 8600GTS like 10 days ago and i thought, hey this is a quite powerful GPU.

But then, when I tried Crysis (okay, i can hear your sigh ) i can barely satisfy with Medium setting on 800x600 res. I havent tried other games yet, except Zoo Tycoon 2 and ProStreet (btw, prostreet is running fine with max setting 1280x1024 no AA).

The thing is, i have P4 640 (3.2GHz) HT and Zoo Tycoon 2 is still sluggish. Actually, i think Zoo Tycoon 2 needs powerful CPU (because my bro's AMD X2 4200+ and Nvidia 7600 GS runs ZT2 marvelously).

Here's the dilemma, I am willing to spend (again) for just one more time. Should i get C2D 4600? I tried using THG's chart, but it doesnt have C2D 4600, so i was referring to C2D 4300 and i am starting to think it is not worth the investment. Let's just assume (in fact this is true) that i cannot return my 8600GTS.

What say you??

ps: I am just a casual gamer, i spend most of my time coding, web designing while playing videos on the background (just my thing ). So, that being said, i could spend the money to get me a new widescreen 19" TFT, my 5 year old 17" viewsonic tft seems to be "shrinking" day by day, hehe..

This might be the first time advice is being sought so that someone can play ZT....

Unless zoo tycoon is multi threaded, I don't think your 640 would be much slower then his 4200+. He might run it better due to more RAM, or perhaps you have some scumware eating up CPU time. My wife likes the Tycoon games, they seem to like lots of ram.

Before suggesting where to put your money, can you tell us what your system looks like? Can your motherboard even handle a C2D?

Whelp.. I don't think OC a C2D (when you don't change the vcore) will hurt or reduce the life span of the processor. I really haven't seen any CPU die from OC'ing except reading about the northwood cores from over volting for stability.

But you don't have to believe what I have ta say on that...

I see the 4600 is 148 bucks, the 4500 is 125 bucks off newegg. If your trying to save some cash, 200mhz stock won't make that much of a difference between those 2.

Edit:

I should say my E4400 has been OC to 3ghz, with a minor vcore increase which is nothing. I've had my system since Nov, and started folding. Its been rock stable folding for over 2 months so far. When I started I had 96 WU done from the previous year. Now I have 200 done:

Grimmy Stats Folding @ home

Heh.. well.. I have 22" LCD and E4400 which I got for 126 bucks.

So I'm happy with what I got, but the real question is, will I ever be satisfied?

. o O (Prolly NOT!!)

I can play Crysis with a 8600gts on medium w/ high shaders with a 3.8 Pentium D. I'd say your CPU was bottle necking your GPU.

1280x1024. Gets slightly choppy at times but I suspect it's my CPU holding me back.

I would like to point out that his current processor is a single core. Not only is the C2D architecture vastly superior and has more IPC, the C2D has TWO cores. He will see significant improvement multitasking.
Look at this chart. I know the 660 is slightly less powerful, but so is the E4300. Currently, you can find the E4500 on newegg for $125. The E4500 is 400MHz faster than the E4300.
You say you design web pages so you must be familiar with Photoshop. The 4300 bests the 660. Hell, even the lowly 2160 beats the 660. it would beat your 670 as well.
If you want to save money you could go with the 2180 which is $85 on newegg.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_ [...] &chart=437

No wonder DELL doesn't overclock, my Pentium 4 Northwood overheats regardless.