time to upgrade?

[skisteven1]

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.

 

[Nagisaki]

First thing's first, if you buy a pentium D, you'll kill a kitten...

Moving on... EMT64 is a feature implimented to have support for, not force, 64-bit operating. You can stick with x86 OSes like XP if you really want to, so there's no worry there. As for dual core, you may want to get a dual core CPU if you don't plan on upgrading for a while.

I personally recomend the Core 2 Duo, but you will likely have to get a new motherboard to support it, but considering how you don't want to upgrade for a while, it'll probrably be worth it. All in all though, it really depends on how much you're willing to spend.

 

[Bobthelost]

2) Pentium D would stop you getting that grinding-to-a-halt effect from a single process like USB HDs.
3) Depends on you, i wouldn't bother with a 20% speed increase for that money.
4) No it's pretty worthless, 64 bit only makes a difference for when you've got over 2GB.
5) Virtualisation makes a difference for some roles, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtualization
6) Odds are that your motherboard can only handle certain FSB speeds, they will probably define which CPUs you can use.

Can't help at all with the others.

 

[Pabster]

First off, dump Virtual PC. It is a pile of crap. As for performance, you'd do better to increase RAM than CPU (IMHO) as VM's are RAM hogs.

Try VMWare. Or Parallels. Both are vastly superior to MS VPC for virtualization.

As for hardware, right now VT and Pacifica hardware-guided virtualization is actually a bit slower than the software mode.

 

[skisteven1]

Considering that I'm generally fine with my performance as-is, I'd like to avoid a major upgrade (ie. one that will require a new motherboard too) if at all possible. Since I don't plan on using Vista (ahh!!!!), I feel like pretty much anything should cover me.

So bobthelost says Pentium D is a good way to go, and nagisaki says it's a terrible idea... any other opinions? Does anyone know what I'm likely able to put in without changing the motherboard? or where I could find out what my options even are?

As for getting rid of VPC -- I had no idea which was better, so I just picked one. I'll probably switch to VMWare this weekend if that's known to be much more efficient.

 

[wamasters]

You also might want to consider the activity you were engaged in when you system slowed down. USB interfaced drives are pretty slow (especially when compared to the high transfer rates of an SATA hard drive or drive array directly connected to a motherboard connection).