Any Upgrade Option?

[Eben77]

I have an old 2006 built LGA 775 pentium 4 unit and I want to upgrade my current cpu (pentium 4 531 3.0ghz prescott) to core 2 duo e4xxx series. I have a tight budget and a complete overhaul is quite expensive on my part. This is the only upgrade path available for me. But the problem is my mobo (asrock conroe865pe) can only support up to 2ghz of c2d (e4400) according to their website. I want something higher, about 2.4 ghz (e4600) or 2.6 ghz (e4700) so that my upgrade can be more practical. I believe a 2 ghz dual core on a desktop nowadays is quite slow in today's applications. Is there any viable options to upgrade above 2 ghz?? Any suggestions or comments shall be appreciated..Thanks!

[Katmai500]

According to the ASRock website's supported CPU list for your motherboard (http://www.asrock.com/mb/cpu.asp?Model=ConRoe865PE) you can use a Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4GHz/4MB L2) or an E6700 (2.66GHz/4MB L2). These E6XXX Core 2 Duo CPUs have 1066MHz bus and 4MB cache vs the 800MHz bus and 2MB L2 cache of the E4XXX series Core 2 Duos. They are a much better upgrade and are worlds faster than the Pentium 4 you have now.

Based on the price at which you can find one, either a Core 2 Duo E6600 or E6700 will be your best bet. (Be careful to avoid the newer and unsupported Pentium Dual Core E6600 and E6700)

You can also consider the Core 2 Quad Q6600 if you are doing any heavily threaded workloads like audio/video encoding. Even general everyday tasks may see some added performance from the extra cores, especially under a newer OS like Windows 7. That CPU is equivalent to two Core 2 Duo E6600 CPUs in one. The Q6700 is not on the supported list.

One more thing: make sure you update to the latest BIOS from the ASRock website before installing the new CPU.