Hey everyone... sorry for asking for help before contributing, but I ran across this forum and thought it would be the perfect place for some advice. The last build I completed was over 5 years ago and was a Pentium 4... components were a lot easier to compare back then.. Anyway, I've been looking at a few Pentium configs, and I can't settle on a cpu. My problem is I keep saying "It's only $10 more to get the next step up... ok but it's only $10 more to get the NEXT step up..." It just seems never ending, and I have no idea what the difference between a "Wolfdale" and a "Yorkshire" processor is... Does anyone recommend anything for a moderately priced rig built for current gen (and beyond) games and some moderate multi-tasking? My issue is finding a median between wimpy and overkill - but if the cheapest processor will handle my needs, I don't need to go much beyond that. I should note that I plan to run Win 7 64. Some processors I've been looking at that seem to be in the range I'm looking for are (as listed on Newegg), with red text for the processors im leaning towards: Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 Wolfdale 2.8GHz LGA 775 65W $109.99 Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 Wolfdale 2.93GHz LGA 775 65W $119.99 Intel Core 2 Duo E7600 Wolfdale 3.06GHz LGA 775 65W $149.99 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz LGA 775 65W $167.99 Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz LGA 775 65W $189.99 Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33GHz LGA 775 95W $159.99 Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 2.5GHz LGA 775 95W $169.99 Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 Yorkfield 2.66GHz LGA 775 95W $169.99 Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 2.66GHz LGA 775 95W $189.99 Thanks in advance!
...And most software that would need more power than 2GHZ is capable of multi-threading, and therefor would run better on a slower quad core anyhow.