Couple of questions about upgrading with my motherboard

[Guest]

Hey guys,

I've decided I want to get back in to pc gaming but need to upgrade my pc a little, but am not too knowledgeable about upgrading.I'm not looking to spend a lot of money or play the latest games just get a little performance boost.

I'm currently at university so don't have the exact specs of the pc on hand, but I found these details online for the desktop I bought about 4 years ago.

Motherboard - Foxconn® RC4107MA-RS2

CPU - Intel® Pentium® 4 641 Prescott (3.20 Ghz)

Memory - 1GB DDR2 PC2-4200

Hard Drive -80GB 7200rpm UDMA

Graphics - Not sure as I purchased it separately, but it was a mid range geforce card in 2006.

Anyway, the two questions I want to ask is.

1) Firstly on the motherboard specs (http://www.foxconnchannel.com/product/Motherboards/detail_overview.aspx?id=en-us0000151) it says "Single channel, DDR2 533/667, x2 DIMMs". I'm not sure what single channel means, but I read on a review of the motherboard, that "There are only two DDR2 memory slots with a single memory channel. This means you don't get the performance boost when installing two sticks of memory that you'd get with two memory channels." Could someone explain what this means?Is it better to get another 1 gig of ram to make 2 gigs in total, Or buy 1x 2gig of ram to replace the 1gig I currently have.

2) Under supported processors, it says "Intel® Pentium® D, Pentium® 4 Prescott, Celeron D, Socket T (LGA775) processors". Upon searching for Socket T, it says Core 2 Duo processors are supported. Does this mean, for example, I could use the Intel E7400 Core 2 Duo Processor? Or do other things need to be taken into account?

 

[o1die]

Newegg has some biostar open box socket 775 boards that will run the older core2 duos for only $20 including shipping. These boards work with your old ram if you want to reuse them. You'll have to hurry if you want one. They come with no accessories, so check the ports to see if they might work with your old backplate. The older core2 duos are faster than your old p4; some are only $50 used at anandtech's for sale forum. Or, if you want to spend more, look at the g41 open box boards which will work with the newest core2 duos and quads. Single versus dual channel ram isn't too important; the performance difference is around 5-7%. For your old foxconn board, if core2 duo isn't on the support list, then they aren't supported; the chipset may be too old.