upgrade advice please

[hardflipman]

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
__________________

[frosty15]

however the cost of that is going to be huge.

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

[merdat]

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

[hardflipman]

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?

[hardflipman]

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

[frosty15]

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?

[hardflipman]

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

[frosty15]

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.