Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad

I currently have a Core 2 Duo 6300 1.86GHz CPU. I am looking to upgrade it on the cheap as I cant afford to buy new mobo etc for core ix CPUs. Was just wondering wether I should go for another Core 2 Duo, if so what model would you suggest for a budget? dont realy want to spend anymore than £50. Do you think I would get any huge performance boost for this amount? or wether its pointless?

I have heard that not all the cores are utilised in a quad core, is this correct? If so is it still going to out perform a Core2 duo?

If my budget is way too low what do you think is a reasonble amount to get a reasonable performance boost?

thanks for your time

You're not gonna get much of a performance boost for £50, in fact I don't think there's a single Core2 Quad to be had at that price (second hand or otherwise). The dual cores you can get for £50 are only gonna be marginally faster than your current CPU. Have you considered overclocking? I would say your chip most likely can ramp up another few hundred Mhz and that alone would give you the performance improvement you would've seen from your £50. I really wouldn't recommend spending that money now especially since CPU prices are quite high right now. Overclock it a bit and hold out till you've got enough for a mobo + CPU upgrade :)

If the mobo and ram are upto it, get a better cpu cooler and overclock to close to 3ghz.

Key factor: what motherboard do you have? That's going to influence whether you'll get a decent overclock out of your CPU or not.

You're unlikely to be able to buy a better CPU for £50 tbh, and certainly you won't get a quad for that because the Core 2 Quads were very good processors and are holding their second hand price really well. That'd instantly limit you to a faster dual core, which, if you have a half decent motherboard, you may be able to get for free by overclocking.

So, definitely try overclocking first

Yeah, might try my hand at lapping, squeeze a little more out of it.

I have a p5b-e which I understand to be a half decent overclocker. I was just hoping there was a good overclockerble core2 duo out there which I may have been able to squeeze even more out of.

If it doesn't OC very well you could buy an E6600 for around £50 or less on ebay. That's what I still use and it OC's to 3.3 on air and it's really good. I am still able to crank most games I play (minus AA/AF), with just a few exceptions (Arma2 and stuff like that).

I'll be selling my chip soon but not until around September or so.

I'd say go for overclocking first, it actually very easy to do on socket 775 motherboards

If your really scared of overclocking then you could get a pentium dual core (these are still just core2duo chips) a e5300 is £52 and 2.6ghz http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Intel...Core-Ratio-65W
Make sure to check compatability with that motherboard first.

However you should be able to get an original e6300 up to 2.3ghz without major issues and probably 2.6ghz, you may well sturggle to get it up to 3ghz as the c2d e6300 was only a x7 multiplier.

Sell your 6300 for £20-£30 then but a Q6600 for about £80.

Keep the 6300 and overclock the nuts off it.

I bought my mates when he upgraded to quad and basically bought a similar setup to his (see my system specs) and currently have the chip running stable at 3.2ghz. My mate had it running 3.5 stable but im happy with it as is. Temps are about 38 on both cores idle and hit about 52 max while running bad company 2 (tuniq ultra 120)

Very good chip.