From low end DDR2 based to low end DDR3 based?

[Ulti]

Had some crazy upgrade plans again, or maybe it's just all natural of us to get bored of stuff after a certain period of time.

Anyway, I was wondering if it was worth upgrading from my MSI P35 Neo + E5300 @ 3.5Ghz with 4GB DDR2 RAM @ 1066mhz to perhaps something like AMD Athlon II X4 620 or Phenom II X2 550 + AM3 board with DDR3 RAM. Of course that would mean me selling off the MSI and E5300 along with the DDR2 RAM.

Would there be any point now though? Would there be any point in the future?

[ed^chigliak]

Seems like a sideways shift and if you want a quad why not put one in your existing system. DDR2 to DDR3 isn't going to make much difference.

[Ulti]

So basically it's a waste of money then.

[ed^chigliak]

Switching motherboard will get you no performance improvement.
Switching from DDR2 to DDR3 will be a very small improvement.
The X4 will be faster only when 4 cores are being used otherwise it will be the same or slower.

You can get a Quad for your existing system. Why change the other stuff? I picked up a Q9450 with 12mb cache for £130 as an upgrade from an overclocked E2180. My new quad is running at 3.4Ghz and it's a very noticeable improvement multi-tasking and in certain games.

Spend money on stuff that will make a difference.

HDD to SSD = faster more responsive (be careful which SSD you buy)
New graphics card = faster smoother gaming (be careful which GPU you buy)

The advantage of having bought low end is you can now upgrade to high end since the prices have come down. Switching Intel to AMD seems a tad pointless however it depend on how much time and effort you want to put into the build and what you can reasonable expect to sell your existing hardware.

[Ulti]

Well SSDs are far too expensive at the moment. I just bought a WD Caviar Black a month ago anyway so that rules out them.

I'm planning on getting a 4770 when the full 5700 and 5800 series are out to see how things work out and to see if it goes down in price.

Guess I'll be keeping my mobo/CPU/RAM for longer then =) Thanks for the help!

[nibbler]

That's pretty good ddr2 RAM anyway. Get a C2Q