Upgrading time! Suggetions and comments welcome.

[syn3rgetic]

Hey people, long time reader, first time poster.

Current Rig:

C2D e6320 @ 1.86GHz (Stock)
GA-965P-S3 Rev1
BFG 8800GTS 320MB (G80)
2GB PC2-6400 OCZ Platinum Rev2
Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit

Been having a sluggish experience as of late. Problems include:

System locks up once in a while, I hear the CD drive spin, and then system unlocks. This can happen whenever I open a file, program, or play a song on winamp.

Audio problems when overclocking. Whenever I overclock, whenever I scroll a window (any window, firefox, winamp, file explorer) the audio that is currently playing would stutter hardcore. I KNOW its not stability problems as I can prime95 for 2 days.

Random stuttering in games. the game would freeze for 5-10 seconds and I will hear a repeated loop of whatever sound's currently playing. (ie: Person A: I'm going to the air-air-air-air-air-airport.) This is when my CPU is not overclocked at all.

I know none of this is software related either as I just did a fresh vista installation and the problems persisted.

I'm going to bit the bullet and just upgrade as I know my parts are starting to show its age (2 years now!)

I'm getting the following parts:

Radeon 4870 512MB
Core 2 Quad Q6600


Here are my questions:

Do you guys think my woes will go away?

Should I get a new motherboard too? The 965 is pretty old and it could actually be the problem. My only concern is Vista activation, I heard that you have to call Microsoft to get your copy of Vista to work on a new system.

How much performance gains will I see? I play games like Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2, Fallout 3 and Red Alert 3. In the future I will play FEAR2, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, and whatever is good.



EDIT: Just to include into my post, I run dual monitors. a 24 inch and a 22 inch.

 

[lunyone]

The cheapest way is to upgrade the mobo/GPU/RAM. Depending on your budget, I'd consider getting a p45 based mobo and transport over your CPU/RAM/DVD/HD's into the new mobo. You can always tell M$ if you have activation issues, that your mobo died and you had to replace it. You than should be able to OC your CPU to 2.5-3 gHz or so and have a quicker system. Along with the newer GPU, you should have a better gaming system for little $ out of your pocket, compared with a full rebuild.

 

[syn3rgetic]

So you're saying that my E6320 for all terms and purposes can catch up to a quad core and be futureproof if I overclock it? Im pretty sure my PC2-6400 isnt that good for overclocking and...man I haven't overclocked since my Athlon XP 2500 Barton days.

 

[lunyone]

Your e6320 should be able to OC to at least 2.5 gHz or more!!! Now if you go too much more you might want to watch your temps and may need an aftermarket CPU HSF to keep things cool. Here's a quote from one review of overclocking the e6320:
"As for the practical results, our Core 2 Duo E6320 with the nominal Vcore of 1.3125V could speed up to 3.29GHz without any core voltage increase. It is equal to 470MHz FSB."
Link to article, about half way down the page.
Not the gospel, but you can see the potential. Even if you just OC the FSB to 400 mHz (800 mHz DDR2 speeds: FSBx2=DDR2 speeds) you should be able to get to about 2.8 gHz!!(FSB x Multiplier = CPU speed, 400 FSB x 7 = 2.8 gHz) That should be pretty good. Now will it smoke a quad core??? Maybe, but that depends on the application and situation, but for gaming most Duo cores will be a bit better than most quad cores, unless the game is written to take advantage of the extra cores!