What Difference between these CPUs?

[Doc]

After a number of years with old faithful 900Mhz AMD I have decided to do a modest (cheap) upgrade.

I am looking at the ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA LGA 775 VIA PT880 Ultra ATX Intel Motherboard as it allows me to keep my IDE hard drives and optical drives with giving me the option of adding SATA when I need to replace a piece or just feel like spending some money. It also allows me to keep my old but sturdy AGP card.

I have narrowed the CPU down to a 1.6 GHz Dual Core or a 3.0 GHZ Pentium. They are both the same price but which is the faster/better processor?

Since I have your attention, I might as well find out what you all think is better between 2Gigs of DDR2 667 type RAM and 2 Gigs of DDR 400 RAM. I can use either of these in the motherboard and the price is about the same.

I do word processing, internet, some music ripping and some light photo work with my computer. I am hoping though to make my new system a dual boot with linux and/or running virtualzation on the computer. I am not a gamer so I do not need the latest and greatest.

Thanks for any suggestions and opinions.

Doc

[liam858]

I'd go with the Core 2 just for the future proofing, going with a P4 is going backwards, and the DDR2...Asrock never cease to amaze with their backwards compatibility.


Liam

[lgbpop]

Asrock never cease to amaze with their backwards compatibility.

Yes, they have perfected the art of looking backwards. Enough said.

[bistro]

Yes, they have perfected the art of looking backwards. Enough said.

....taht htiw eerga ot evah I

Not meant as a put-down, but if you are going to do any kind of "upgrade", you seriously need to look at PCI-E boards and a PCI-E graphics card. AGP has become quite long in the tooth. I think you will be far happier in the long run.

[Doc]

One of the nice things about this motherboard is that it does have a PCIe slot so I can "upgrade" to one when I want.

As I do not do any intensive video work my AGP card should be fine even though it is a few years out of date.

Doc

[MPTech]

I was checking this out as well, since I hate to have to buy all new at once (well, I'l like to, but the wifey might have something to say), this could allow you to upgrade gradually, replacing individual components as desired.

I didn't see the AGP support though, only PCI-E. (did I miss it?)

[Doc]

It has 1 x 8X AGP. Note though that NewEgg is out of this board unless you buy an open box. From what I can tell this board has been discontinued and is replaced by 4CoreDual-SATA2 which upgrades the SATA. The board also has a 1 x 8X AGP slot in addition to the PCIe.

NewEgg is not selling this board so you will need to do a search to find it.

Doc

[MPTech]

Even better! (I may have been looking at the wrong board)

That thing is a BEAST!

just curious, could I mix DDR and DDR2 memory to max out to 2gig?

while I'm at it, would it support also Sata & IDE at the same time?

[Doc]

As I understand it is only DDR or DDR2 for 2 Gigs max, you cannot combine them.

I believe, though am not sure, that you can have both IDE and SATA running on the board. I need to download the manual to make sure.

Doc

[liam858]

I don't think running mixed RAM would work because of the different bus speeds, but you can use SATA and IDE at the same time with no problems.


Liam

[MPTech]

I didn't think you could mix the Ram, but thought I'd ask anyway.

I did believe that you could run 4 HDDs (cool).

My thought is: for the price of the mobo and cpu, I could make a significant processing upgrade, while continuing to use existing HDDs, Video card (AGP), and Memory (DDR).
Later, I could swap out the memory completely, to DDR2.
Then, replace the Video card.
And add Sata drives (making the Sata the OS & Apps and using the IDEs as backups)

And it sounds overclockable, bonus!

[liam858]

All of the core 2's are Overclockable, so it would be good to fiddle around OC'in when you switch to Core 2 and DDR2.


Liam