$500 budget rig.

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: 1 Nov or so.

SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: Playing WoW and various FPS, internet browsing, various office productivity tasks

PARTS NOT REQUIRED: (e.g.: keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, OS) Don't need kb/mouse/speakers, hard drive, or CD/DVD drive.

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: Newegg, but I don't care that much so long as it all comes from the same place.

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: California, USA

PARTS PREFERENCES: My current monitor is failing, so I'd like a 20+ inch LCD monitor with 1080P resolution. I'd like to use an AMD processor but it's not required if Intel is a better deal.

OVERCLOCKING: Maybe

SLI OR CROSSFIRE: Maybe, if possible and practicable within my price range.

MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1080P (1920x1080), possible dual monitor with 1280x1024

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: I'm trying to upgrade from the following rig, which is choking on multitasking:
Intel C2D E6320 (1.86ghz)
2GB DDR2 (Mushkin)
BFG GeForce 8800 GT OC 512MB
XFX mainboard (I forget the model, but it's about 2 years old and supports SLI)
Generic case and PSU

Get your motherboard model. It may be able to take a C2quad CPU and that could resolve your multitasking for now.

What OS are you running?

Is your case a slimline, mini tower or mid-tower?

NOOOooo...! Dont even think about Vista. Get Win 7 or fall back to XP. Look at the article Toms wrote today. Win 7 is 7-10% faster than Vista. Vista will just make your problem worse.

The Athlon suggested is a quad core so it should multi-task better. Unfortunately I dont know enough about older intel CPUs to know if there is a nice 2.6+GHz quad core you could just drop in that would be nearly as good as the AthlonIIx4.

Maybe a Q8400?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115057
I think the question is what wattage is your motherboard rated for. The E6200 is only 65W but the q8400 is 95W.

If it will handle the extremes (they are like 125W) it will handle a q8400 or a q9550.

If you are running XP then 2GB RAM is not likely to be a problem, 4GB RAM would be the most you could use. 4GB would let you run windows 7 really nicely, especially with a quad CPU.

1.8GHz is alot slower than 2.8GHz and dual core doesnt multitask near as well as quad core.

It is possible your HDD is a problem. Is it over half full? what kind is it?
Also can you link your motherboard so I could see all the specs.

Unless your Seagate is one of the ones with a firmware problem, it wont be an issue. You might google about the seagate 7200 firmware problem and see if there is anything that might apply to you.

Newegg isnt the only site with info.
http://www.xfxforce.com/en-us/prod [...] 680.aspx#1
"SATA Speed: 3.0GB/s" Thats up to date. Motherboard specs look good.

I would think a nice quad CPU would make it feel like a new machine. If you added 2GB more RAM and windows 7 it would be like a new machine.


The 8800 will drive a 22 inch 1380x1050 monitor at around high graphics levels on most games if you turn AA and a couple memory intensive settings off (I can with a 9800 GTX+ on a dual core Athlon at 3.2GHz). I just got this good deal on a HannsG 22inch LCD. I like it (had it less than a week), but its not 1080 like you want.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6824254035