Upgrade or wait?

[s14sliden]

Well im new to all this but i have a Dell XPS Gen 4 couple years old now wIth a P4 Extreme Edition 3.7ghz, with all these new games coming out that i would love to play (already upgrading GPU) should i stick with what im currently using or should i upgrade to a new core 2 Duo processor. i see that most clock at 3.2ghz but since its Dual cores is it better then my 3.7ghz? what do the duo processors do that mines does not. are they faster then my single core even thought it clocks at 3.7ghz or what. these new things confuse me a bit. thanks in advance and if you guys don`t understand me sorry
thanks in advance

[ibleet]

Welcome to the boards!

First, what are your system specs?

Unless the games have support for duel cores (multi threading) then your current processor will be faster in most cases. But then again, it will depend on your current configuration.

A duel core can do more with multi-tasking, but will never be twice as fast as a single core with the same clock speed. Another thing to consider is your budget.

[Major_A]

From what I've seen a C2D is faster than that P4 EE in almost all cases. However just upgrade your video card first and see if the games play to your satisfaction. I know my Opteron is getting a little long in the tooth but going from a 7600GT to a 8800GTS 320MB was like night and day.

[Zelig]

The Core 2 (Conroe) architechture is different from the Pentium 4 (Netburst) architecture. A pentium 4 at 3.7 GHz is approximately equal in speed to a Core 2 Duo running at 2.1 GHz (Core 2 Duo E6400 model) with one core disabled.

[DMB2000uk]

The Core 2 (Conroe) architechture is different from the Pentium 4 (Netburst) architecture. A pentium 4 at 3.7 GHz is approximately equal in speed to a Core 2 Duo running at 2.1 GHz (Core 2 Duo E6400 model) with one core disabled.

Is there somewhere that gives you a nice core 2 vs P4 performance chart? I know I could look up original launch reviews of the relative performances, but was hoping there was a nice rule of thumb, or chart that would make it easier to compare the performances.

Dan

[Zelig]

The Core 2 (Conroe) architechture is different from the Pentium 4 (Netburst) architecture. A pentium 4 at 3.7 GHz is approximately equal in speed to a Core 2 Duo running at 2.1 GHz (Core 2 Duo E6400 model) with one core disabled.

Is there somewhere that gives you a nice core 2 vs P4 performance chart? I know I could look up original launch reviews of the relative performances, but was hoping there was a nice rule of thumb, or chart that would make it easier to compare the performances.

Dan

Tomshardware has nice charts for cpus and video cards. You have to pick out the tests that utilize only 1 core by eye, or check the charts for past years if you want only older hardware.