CPU, MOBO and RAM upgrade

Myxomatosis

I'm selling my current motherboard, cpu, ram, old graphics card and PSU and should get roughly 300 yoyo's for them.

So that leaves me with an X1800XT, 530w PSU, hard-drives, DVD-drive etc.

Having no summer job yet I actually have very little income at the moment, so I'm only prepared to add maybe 50 yoyo to the 300 for the upgrade.

I've been doing a little research and I'm split between the X2 5600+ and the Core 2 Duo E6600

Komplett have a nice AMD upgrade bundle here:
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=321080
5600+, 2GB PC5300 DDR2, MSI K9N NEO-F
€350

and an Intel bundle here
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=312032
E6600, 2GB PC5300 DDR2, Asus P5N-E SLI
€395

Obviously I might be better off avoiding a bundle but in general terms, any combination of 3 items for each of the AMD and Intel will roughly come to 350 and 400 respectively.

So all of that said, here come the questions.

The 5600+ loses as much benchmarks than it wins against the E6600 (well maybe the E6600 wins one or two more) from what I've seen, so is it worth going paying that bit extra, 14% if my maths is correct, to go the Intel route.

The memory in the Intel bundle above is PC2-5300, where as in the AMD bundle it's PC2-6400.

If I was to get an E6600, would it be wise to get DDR2 6400 RAM?

From what I've seen, you need to start looking at higher cost socket-775 motherboards if you want to use 6400, a lot of the mid priced ones only support, at most, 5300. But a lot of the mid priced AM2 boards support 6400.

So if it is recommended to go with faster ram for the E6600, that's going to push the 400 mark up a bit, and that's not really desirable, well not till I get a job at least.

What to do, oh what to do.

8T8

PC 5300 (DDR-2 667) vs PC 6400 (DDR-2 800) real world difference is pretty small if on a tight budget get DDR-2 667 or DDR-2 533.

If you want the E6600 you can get it with some penny pinching here & there;

Gigabyte 945 chipset - supports Core 2 Duo E6600, performance difference is very small between other chipsets like 965 or P35 though no CPU upgrade potential past current Core 2's & limited to DDR-2 667 (higher speed RAM will auto clock down).

Core 2 Duo E6600

1GB Twinmos DDR-2 667 (buy two for 2GB)

Total cost = €362 so you just have enough to get everything you need or drop down to 1GB and stay within budget.

Till you get more cash the 945 will tide you over in the interim or you just might be happy with it outright.

Ishindar

No.: HV20D848DE 2048MB DDR2 Corsair TwinX XMS2 CL 5, PC6400/800 102,66 No.: HV20E660DE Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Box 4096Kb, LGA775, 64bit, Conroe 188,97
No.: HV1125ULDE ASUS P5B, Sockel 775 Intel P965, ATX 88,71

380e total but 2gigs of good ram from hardwareversand.de

p.s. u wont get much nowadays for a p4 chip & mobo & ram etc.