upgrade advice please

hi, i currently have abit an8ultra with 1.5gb ram, athlon64 3000, and x1950 pro.

i had been thinking of upgrading to a conroe sometime soonish. however the cost of that is going to be huge. so i was thinking maybe about maybe getting an athlon 64 x2 3800 and maybe getting the following motherboard
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/MSI-MS-7194-s...VQQcmdZViewItem
and adding another x1950.

i'm really looking forward to supreme commander coming out and hopefully using 2 monitors (dell 2007fwp). what are the chances of the above being able to do that? would having 2 cores at 2ghz be much better than 1 at the same speed? also i saw dabs have (but not in stock!) opteron 165. it's only 2x1.8ghz but these are multiplier unlocked aren't they? any good?

cheers
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however the cost of that is going to be huge.

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Why so?
If you are worried about the additional cost of not only a new cpu but also DDR2 then there is an answer.
It's not highly overclockable, but the Asrock 775Dual-VSTA is perfect for migrating from AMD to C2D with the minimum of outlay.
It accepts AGP and PCI-e (though pci-e is only x4) and supports either DDR or DDR2.
So, for under £36, you can have a mobo which will take your ram and graphics card and give you the extra performance of C2D while you save up for DDR2 and a performance mobo.
BTW an e6300 will wipe the floor with a X2 3800+
Upgrade solved :)

Yes Frosty 15's correct -the asrock is a good solution to the high initial cost of changeout to core 2 duo. See tom's hardware or Anandtech for board tests with core 2 :)

interesting. didn't know about that board. the reason i was ssaying the cost was going to be so high was that i was presuming i would get an e6600 which is about 200 plus an expensive mobo and of course new ram.

would the 4xpci-e not cripple my graphics card? would the upgrade fro my current system be particularly noticeable?

hmmm, looking at that board i'd have to lose some of my ram as i've currently got 2x512 and 2x256 - damn

If you are thinking of getting an E6600 then a better mobo would be advisable, the Asrock has a niche in the amd-c2d market.
What sort of budget do you have?

i'm thinking i'll just wait and upgrade later on in the year and get a 6300 and overclock it a wee bit. i'm sure i can wait... i hope

In 5-6 months you'll be able to get an e6320 for the same price as an e6300, main difference being 4MB cache rather than just the 2MB.