right guys, need some honest and sensible opinions on this.
i would love to do a complete upgrade on my rig, but with money as it is - just started working for myself so not gonna be as flush as i'd like for a bit, and then there's the devil (sorry i ment taxman ).
so a new case is a must (waitng for cm's new haf-x - when it eventually arrives on these shores) so other than that there is the following
e6750 with an h50, p5q-deluxe p45, 4gb geil ddr2 ultra pc6400, ocz evostream720, 320gb sammy f1 & an xfx 4870 1gb.
an adaquate(ish) set-up. if it had still been with my p35 board, then i would prob have jumped ship and returned to an amd set-up -(i only went c2d as old athlon x2 was getting on and amd had nothing new on the horizon). but my mobo is only just over 12 months old and never had an issue - let alone it's far off the price as i'd paid for it.
so for now i'm gonna stay 775. so what would we be looking at? from the quaddy point of view there is the 9400 @ £150 approx, that would be where i start looking. then from there there is the 9650, with 12mb cache as opposed to the 6 on the 9400 and it sits at 3ghz stock but with a £100 premium over it's sibbling.
down the duo route is the e8400 @ £140, or then top of the line e8600 which is exactly the same as the 8400 except it's 0.33ghz higher clocked for a premium of £80 - not exactly worth it in my book.
so what would you go for and why? and any other changes that u'd make? i do a fair bit of mp3/ipod ripping and burning of the proverbial dvd or two - and last but not least a fair bit of gaming bc2/mw2/MoH etc etc.
oh and now tax returns to - not sure if a quaddy would be able to do that maybe a hexacore is what's needed there