Upgrade Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 for Rendering

[Chrislsimpson]

I am working on stuff in 3dsmax, but my renderings are slow and ineffeicent because of an old processor I have. Currently i have a Intel Core 2 Duo E6750. I am looking for something to upgrade to so that i can have faster renders (not for gaming). What would be the best thing to upgrade to if i was willing to spend around $100 and probably up to $200 max. Also how hard is it to swtich out a CPU? Can you just take the old one out and put the new one in?

For the rest of my computer, i have windows 7 with 16GB of RAM and and a 660TTI its just the processor thats killing my render times and I would really like to find something to replace it with. I don't have the money to buy a competely new computer unless it would be cheaper to do so and just put the graphics card into the new rig.

That might be what i have to do because the motherboard is a old Dell XPS720 Motherboard form 2007 that only supports DDR2 RAM.

 

[o1die]

You can do an extensive case mod like this: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/326072-31-dell-case or start over. I would sell your dell intact or remove the hardrive for security reasons and sell the rest. Your old dell case is btx format, meaning the motherboard ports are on the wrong side. Those boards are available, but I wouldn't put any more money into it since your can't update later to socket 1155 or any newer board that's atx without modding the case.