Christmas present

[miner1436]

Hello, this christmas I was thinking of upgrading my Pc's CPU to 3.0Ghz, can someone give me some recomondations of good brands?

[JSLTIGER]

It's a touch more complicated than that. First off, you need to know what brand chip you have in your motherboard (AMD or Intel). Then, beyond that, you need to know what socket the chip is (most likely contenders: For Intel chips: 423, 478, 775. For AMD: 462 aka A, 754, 939, AM2) in order to determine compatibility. If you have an older CPU socket, a faster chip may not be compatible, meaning that you need an entirely new motherboard, at which point it may make more sense to buy a new computer.

The next thing to know is that 3.0GHz doesn't always mean the same thing. It depends on the chip. For instance, a Celeron D at 3GHz will be slower than a Pentium 4 at 3GHz which will be slower than an Athlon 64 at 3GHz. There is also a question of dual core and quad core chips. Dual core is generally faster than single core at the same clockspeeds, but quad cores additional power may not be noticed immediately as few programs take advantage of the additional cores at the moment.

Don't attempt to upgrade without knowing what you are doing. You may wind up with a useless or fried component, and then you've wasted money. Not fun.

I'd recommend posting what you've got. A simple little program called CPU-Z can be downloaded here: www.cpuid.com

[miner1436]

CURRENT CPU INFO:
Intel Core Duo E6300
Code name:Conroe
Socket 775 LGA
Technology 65nm
Core VID 1.213 V
Specification Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 CPU 6300 @ 1.8GHz
Family 6
model F
Stepping 6
Ext. Family 6
Ext. Model F
Revision B2
Instructions MMX,SSE,SSE2,SSE3,SSSE3,EM64T



Hope that sums it up.

[JSLTIGER]

You should know then that that's a pretty speedy chip, even today. If you are willing, you could probably overclock that chip quite nicely (up to the 3GHz speeds that you want). However, I can suggest three options at this point (that won't result in you needing to buy other new system components):

Your 3GHz Dual core option:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115028

A slightly slower (but still faster) quad core at 2.4GHz and at the same price (this seems to be the most popular option right now):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115017

Or if you've got tons of extra $$$, get the best of both worlds!:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115026

[miner1436]

Thanks

[JSLTIGER]

You're welcome. Hey, you know...should you decide you want the more powerful chip and you have no need for the one you're currently using, feel free to send it my way!