[Autarch Uthlanar]

(For starters I'm not that great with computers...which is why I'm asking this )

The Core 2 Quad

http://www.intel.com/Consumer/Learn/Desktop/core2quad-detail.htm?cid=cim:ggl|core_us_4core|f7B406|s

Intel Core 2 duo CPU
E4500 @ 2.20 GHz
2.19 GHz, 3.25 GB of RAM
And a Nvidia 8800gt Alpha Dog Edition

My system specs, my worries are:
Will I need to get a new motherboard, and a new OS (I have XP)?
Would it be best to just wait a while for newer products to come out since E3 just happened, newer products will come....

[Tyndmyr]

What socket is on your motherboard?

[Jonagon]

If I understand your post correctly you currently have a Core 2 duo E4500 and you're thinking about going quad core?

In that case in all likelikehood your current mobo will be fine (though a bios update might possibly be nesscairy depending on how old it is).

It depends what you're doing with your pc, personally unless you're doing lots of video encoding or something i'd stick with a fast dual core CPU, so maybe upgrade to an E7400 or something. (and overclock it :P)

[Impulse]

As long as your mobo is from the P4 era, it should be fine. Rule of thumb is that a mobo that can support a current era processor can support any Intel processor of this era.

However, unless if you do a lot of media decoding, or very CPU intensive tasks, the performance gain is almost nothing.

[GeekyGator]

Well it'd certainly help with multitasking. And if I recall correctly, some of the new games are finally starting to multi-thread. In which case your extra cores can help.

[Jonagon]

Originally Posted by Impulse

As long as your mobo is from the P4 era, it should be fine. Rule of thumb is that a mobo that can support a current era processor can support any Intel processor of this era.

Umm, I wouldn't really trust that rule too much, the earlier P4's used a different power architecture and are not compatible with current motherboards, as such I suspect that a motherboard of this era may not support the newer core 2 duos. Also the new CPUs (Core i7) are using Socket B.

[mace]

As far as I know, the E4500 only comes in a socket 775 version, so any 775 processor would fit - however we would need more information on the motherboard (i.e. the model and bios version) to be able to find the compatibility list for that motherboard...

If it's mainly for gaming and not video processing/encoding etc then I'd go with an E8400 instead of a quad core as an upgrade. Since my net is capped the Intel page you linked to won't even load for me. But yeah if you don't have programs that make use of the extra cores then it's not much of an upgrade going to a quad core.

Originally Posted by GeekyGator

Well it'd certainly help with multitasking. And if I recall correctly, some of the new games are finally starting to multi-thread. In which case your extra cores can help.

Still only two cores at most, for current games..

Originally Posted by Gray Fox

My system specs, my worries are:
Will I need to get a new motherboard, and a new OS (I have XP)?
Would it be best to just wait a while for newer products to come out since E3 just happened, newer products will come....

If your current motherboard doesn't support a new cpu that you want to put in, then yes you will need to get a new motherboard. For a start though, you haven't mentioned what your current motherboard is.
And you shouldn't need to reinstall the OS.. unless you change the motherboard or hard drive configuration..

New products come out all the time, it's not exclusive to E3 either.. if you you absolutely need the upgrade then don't wait.

[GeekyGator]

Originally Posted by .mace

Still only two cores at most, for current games..

A triple core would still help though, since you are running your OS in the background, and probably several other processes.

[Tyndmyr]

Triple cores are rare. Quad cores help even for games that are not multithreaded, though obviously, not nearly so much. In particular, the OS runs a number of processes generally, and those can be allocated to different cores.

Ive ran a pair of quad cores for a while now, and they're fantastic(both of em are the intel Q6600). You get advantages like a fat cashe, so even if your threads are not maxing out each individual CPU, they may be running faster than they otherwise would. Of course, threadsafe programming is only going to become more common in the future.

[Jonagon]

To my knowledge XP doesn't have any multithreading support does it? And since thats the OS the original poster is running he's unlikely to see much speed benefit when just running the OS.

EDIT: After reading up on it a little XP does have some multithreading support hacked on, but its nowhere near as good as the later versions (Vista and 7).