Before I begin, I should point out that my technical knowledge of PCs is somewhat limited. I had a friend help me put my current system together back in September 2006, and I've not changed it since then (other than putting in a new GPU). I'm not clear on what my options for an upgrade are, and whether or not the cost involved will be worth the performance increase.

CPU-Z tells me the following:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 @ 1.86GHz, Conroe, Socket 775 LGA, 65 nm (CPU is not overclocked at all)
AW9D-MAX (Intel i975-ICH7) 1.0

I have 2x sticks of Corsair CM2X1024-5400C4 RAM, and am currently running BIOS aw9d12 (if memory serves I updated the BIOS at the time I built the PC).

Hope that's enough information. If I need to list anything else from CPU-Z, please let me know.

I was mainly wondering if I could upgrade the CPU but leave everything else as it is (i.e. upgrade as cheaply as possible). I had a look at the CPU support list - http://www.abit.com.tw/cpu-support-l...w9d_series.htm - and noticed that there's a listing for the Core 2 Duo E6700. I searched online for this CPU, and am slightly confused by what I found...

It seems that this CPU runs at 2.66 GHz, but there are also new E6700 CPUs which run at 3.2 GHz - http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id...ec-codes=SLGUF. Does anyone know if these new E6700s will work in the AW9D-MAX, and if so, is the CPU any good? Assuming it works, would I be better off getting the 3.2 GHz model over the 2.66GHz model?

If I do have to go with the 2.66GHz model, I expect I'd need to get one second-hand. In this case, will I be able to use the HS and fan from my E6300 (it's the stock one that came with it) if necessary?

Thanks.