- Jul 15, 2003
- 537
- 0
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Hi all,
I hate to be the newbie of the group, so I've done my best to at least get the background info, if not answer my own questions.
I'm currently running a 2.53Ghz Celeron-D 325 (Prescott 775 LGA 90nm 16/256 L1/L2) on the stock motherboard that came with my Dell SC420 server. I've got 1GB of DDR2 memory (PC2-4300).
Recently, I've gotten into running a virtual machine on MS's Virtual PC (an exchange server). Last night everything really slowed to a crawl when I was copying files off of a USB hd (cpu was @100), and it occurred to me that it might be time for an upgrade. When I bought the computer I always assumed I'd upgrade the proc, but just haven't had the need.
Should I upgrade? is the time right? Whatever I get, I'd like it to last me 2 1/2 year
s or so without anymore significant upgrades. The computer is currently a year and a half old, and most of the time I have no problems with it.
I'm thinking that if I can bump it up to a dual core of some sort for like $100, then that would be worthwhile, but I'm really really tempted to go Core 2 Duo.
So my questions are the following:
1) What processors can I even use with this motherboard (and/or where can I easily find out for myself)?
2) Assuming that all the procs that are pin-compatible will work, should I just bump it up to Pentium-D (dual core? hyperthreading?) and call it a day? Please keep in mind that I'm generally just fine with performance, it's only under an extreme load that I get impatient.
3) If I can't do dual core with this mobo, is it worth it to bump up to a Pentium-D that's a little faster for like 80 bucks? Is a 3.0Ghz Celeron-D just a totally worthless upgrade?
4) Does EM64T really do anything? i mean, I feel like 64bit won't really help on day to day stuff, and might even break things. I'd rather not have to upgrade to 64bit windows
5) processors that "support" virtualization. Does that mean anything? or is it marketing-trash?
6) Should I worry about FSB on procs? I think I'm running 533 now, but I'm not sure if my mobo can go up. I imagine that's the best way to increase performance....
Here's some options I'm looking at on newegg... tell me what you think:
$66 - Celeron D 346 Prescott 3.06Ghz w/ EM64T
$88 - Pentium 4 524 Prescott 3.06Ghz w/64bit, w/HT (16k/1MB cache)
$90 - Pentium D 805 Smithfield 2.66Ghz Dual Core, EM64T (32k/2x1MB cache)
$128- Pentium D 915 Presler 2.8Ghz Dual Core, w/64bit, (65nm), (32k/2x2MB cache)
$165- Pentium D 930 Presler 3.0Ghz Dual Core, w/64bit, (32k/2x2MB cache), WITH VIRTUALIZATION support
Now, I find it unlikely that these will all be compatible, but I can hope, right? Let me know what you think.
I hate to be the newbie of the group, so I've done my best to at least get the background info, if not answer my own questions.
I'm currently running a 2.53Ghz Celeron-D 325 (Prescott 775 LGA 90nm 16/256 L1/L2) on the stock motherboard that came with my Dell SC420 server. I've got 1GB of DDR2 memory (PC2-4300).
Recently, I've gotten into running a virtual machine on MS's Virtual PC (an exchange server). Last night everything really slowed to a crawl when I was copying files off of a USB hd (cpu was @100), and it occurred to me that it might be time for an upgrade. When I bought the computer I always assumed I'd upgrade the proc, but just haven't had the need.
Should I upgrade? is the time right? Whatever I get, I'd like it to last me 2 1/2 year
s or so without anymore significant upgrades. The computer is currently a year and a half old, and most of the time I have no problems with it.
I'm thinking that if I can bump it up to a dual core of some sort for like $100, then that would be worthwhile, but I'm really really tempted to go Core 2 Duo.
So my questions are the following:
1) What processors can I even use with this motherboard (and/or where can I easily find out for myself)?
2) Assuming that all the procs that are pin-compatible will work, should I just bump it up to Pentium-D (dual core? hyperthreading?) and call it a day? Please keep in mind that I'm generally just fine with performance, it's only under an extreme load that I get impatient.
3) If I can't do dual core with this mobo, is it worth it to bump up to a Pentium-D that's a little faster for like 80 bucks? Is a 3.0Ghz Celeron-D just a totally worthless upgrade?
4) Does EM64T really do anything? i mean, I feel like 64bit won't really help on day to day stuff, and might even break things. I'd rather not have to upgrade to 64bit windows
5) processors that "support" virtualization. Does that mean anything? or is it marketing-trash?
6) Should I worry about FSB on procs? I think I'm running 533 now, but I'm not sure if my mobo can go up. I imagine that's the best way to increase performance....
Here's some options I'm looking at on newegg... tell me what you think:
$66 - Celeron D 346 Prescott 3.06Ghz w/ EM64T
$88 - Pentium 4 524 Prescott 3.06Ghz w/64bit, w/HT (16k/1MB cache)
$90 - Pentium D 805 Smithfield 2.66Ghz Dual Core, EM64T (32k/2x1MB cache)
$128- Pentium D 915 Presler 2.8Ghz Dual Core, w/64bit, (65nm), (32k/2x2MB cache)
$165- Pentium D 930 Presler 3.0Ghz Dual Core, w/64bit, (32k/2x2MB cache), WITH VIRTUALIZATION support
Now, I find it unlikely that these will all be compatible, but I can hope, right? Let me know what you think.