My girlfriend could use a new rig. She currently has an old HP running a slowish C2D (2.2 GHz IIRC) with 2GB of RAM. 945G chipset.
I currently the following laying around not doing anything:
Gigabyte P45 MB - ATX
8 GB DDR2 RAM
QX9650 C2Q 3.0 GHz
GeForce 750ti
PC Power and Cooling 750 watt PSU
Unfortunately, it seems that the motherboard in the current rig (Asus P5LP-LE Rev 6.00) won't accept the quad core CPU I have, though it could probably run the GPU and I could use the memory in it. Cost - $0.00
Alternatively, I could buy a new case for the old motherboard and set up a slightly better rig than she has now. Possibly upgrade to an SSD in the process. Cost - $50-150 probably.
Or I could just flush everything and build fresh with an i3 and just use the GPU. Cost $300-450?
Her son is 7 and plays basic games like Minecraft and Terraria and watches YouTube videos. The third option seems a little silly, plus I don't have the cash for that at the moment, but 1 and 2 don't really seem that different. One advantage to option 1 is not needing to re-install Windows, but I can't help but want to find a home for this C2Q that I've had laying around. Is there enough difference between a C2D and C2Q to justify the extra effort?
Somebody talk something that resembles "sense" to me.
I currently the following laying around not doing anything:
Gigabyte P45 MB - ATX
8 GB DDR2 RAM
QX9650 C2Q 3.0 GHz
GeForce 750ti
PC Power and Cooling 750 watt PSU
Unfortunately, it seems that the motherboard in the current rig (Asus P5LP-LE Rev 6.00) won't accept the quad core CPU I have, though it could probably run the GPU and I could use the memory in it. Cost - $0.00
Alternatively, I could buy a new case for the old motherboard and set up a slightly better rig than she has now. Possibly upgrade to an SSD in the process. Cost - $50-150 probably.
Or I could just flush everything and build fresh with an i3 and just use the GPU. Cost $300-450?
Her son is 7 and plays basic games like Minecraft and Terraria and watches YouTube videos. The third option seems a little silly, plus I don't have the cash for that at the moment, but 1 and 2 don't really seem that different. One advantage to option 1 is not needing to re-install Windows, but I can't help but want to find a home for this C2Q that I've had laying around. Is there enough difference between a C2D and C2Q to justify the extra effort?
Somebody talk something that resembles "sense" to me.