Need opinions on new CPU

[tommy]

I went to my local PC shop and asked about upgrading my processor and was told i could go from my Celeron 1.70 to a P4 2.2 for $90.

He did explain i wouldnt be getting too much of an upgrade but for PC gaming and certain emu's it would be better.

What do you guys think, is it worth the $90 for that upgrade??

[Hoopz]

Dont forget to look at Pricewatch and see if you can find a better deal before making a decision. 

For the same $90, you can get a much faster Celeron.  Granted, it would be an OEM chip so factor that in also.

What type of PC gaming are you doing?  FPS?  MMORPG?  I would say that any additional benefit from increasing the cpu may not be worth the $90.

I would suggest looking at your budget and see if you can afford a CPU/mobo combo.  For $100 you can get "X", for $150 you can get "Y", for $200 you can get "Z".  lf you want to go that route, consider what proc and chipset you want etc.

I went from an AMD 1.33 to the 2.2 for roughly the same amount of money.  But I almost doubled my proc for $100.  You aren't getting that type of return.

It all goes back to what type of gaming I guess.

[SOAPboy]

Dont forget to look at Pricewatch and see if you can find a better deal before making a decision.

[Dire Radiant]

Are you sure a CPU upgrade will give you the most bang for your buck? What are the rest of your PC specs?

[SOAPboy]

Are you sure a CPU upgrade will give you the most bang for your buck? What are the rest of your PC specs?

unless hes using some ungodly low ammoutn of ram, super slow 5400 rpm hds and 10$ videocard.. im gonna have to guess that honestly, if its just to gimp it along for another 6 months, cpu is the way to go

[Dire Radiant]

Yeah but I've lost count of occasions when people have asked me for the "wrong" upgrade (It's what I do) I've seen people ask me to upgrade their CPU to >3GHz when they're still using onbard intel graphics and 128MB RAM or "upgrade" their GF3 to a GF4MX. I hope Tommy is a little more sensible than that but you never know. It's astonishing how many otherwise intelligent people fall into Intel's "Clock cycles are everything" trap.

[tommy]

I've got a Dell dimesion 2350, Radeon pci 9200 128MB, 640Ram with the celeron 1.70, WINXP.

The 2.2 P4 is the best processor i can get without a new board they say.

[SOAPboy]

Yeah but I've lost count of occasions when people have asked me for the "wrong" upgrade (It's what I do) I've seen people ask me to upgrade their CPU to >3GHz when they're still using onbard intel graphics and 128MB RAM or "upgrade" their GF3 to a GF4MX. I hope Tommy is a little more sensible than that but you never know. It's astonishing how many otherwise intelligent people fall into Intel's "Clock cycles are everything" trap.

laf yeah some people fall into that bs..

[SOAPboy]

I've got a Dell dimesion 2350, Radeon pci 9200 128MB, 640Ram with the celeron 1.70, WINXP.

The 2.2 P4 is the best processor i can get without a new board they say.

Go for it dude.. not the best Video, but still better than onboard.. go for the pentium. youll thank me later..

[Hoopz]

Get specifics on what pc games though.  If its FPS, then you are restricted as much by your video card than your cpu.

That's why I suggested getting a new mobo/cpu for $200 (if you can afford it).

You can go either P4 or AMD for more CPU power.  But you are still restricted by the video card for some games.

[tommy]

I've been recently into Project64 emu and some games are a bit slow , but not due to the video card but the processor.

I havent had a problem with Doom3 or Painkiller but OO7 for PJ64 is slow(thats very odd to me)so hopefully all things in general will be a bit faster. Any PC game out now and alittle into the future shouldn'tneed more then my system specs with the new processor.

Maybe i should look into a mobo because my video card is the best pci card i can use on my board and you can never have a enough power from a graphics card.

[Chris]

Can you put another MB in there?  Sometimes DELL cases are slighly nonstandard and dislike non-DELL motherboards...

[NoOne=NBA=]

Can you put another MB in there?  Sometimes DELL cases are slighly nonstandard and dislike non-DELL motherboards...

I second that.

I had two at work that we bought really nice, new CD-R drives for, and I had to take one home, rip the old 8x out of my wife's computer, and bring it into work because the MOBO wouldn't recognize anything faster than a 12x for some reason, on either of them.

Also, there is RAM to consider.
If you upgrade the MOBO, your old RAM probably won't work.
The vid card should work to get you by, but won't be optimal on a new MOBO.

[Navmaxlp]

I play MMORPGs a lot and in those, you can NEVER have too much ram. As long as you have a somewhat decent ie 1.3ghz proc, when playing these games, ram is better than a proc upgrade. Can't really go wrong with a cpu upgrade though. Just my opinion though. Just trying to show some other options.

[jdsony]

The upgrade to a P4 2.2 would be a good upgrade if you are not going to be able to afford a larger upgrade for a while. To put it into perspective...a 1.7ghz P4 is faster than a 2.6ghz Celeron in almost all cases. Celeron's are quite hampered and a 2.2ghz P4 would be a great boost for emulation. The video card does play a part in N64 emulation but the processor is the biggest factor for sure and the upgrade will benefit you. I don't remember how Goldeneye ran on my Athlon XP 2000+ but most games ran at a great speed. Perfect Dark was a little slow so Goldeneye might have been as well but those are the only two that would have a speed problem if any did. Mame would probably benefit a little but most games that don't run fullspeed on a 1.7ghz Celeron also won't run full speed on faster CPU's.

1776x1000 4xAA 16xAniso N64 gaming is where it's at though =)