I suggest that you try the "power search" function for Intel motherboards at
www.newegg.com, even if you can't use them (outside US or Canada) or don't
care to use them.
I find three Socket 775 boards with 5 PCI slots:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...lue=735%3A7583
(link may wrap)
I don't know of a simple performance comparison. The highest clock
frequencies of a Core2 CPU may not be much higher than a P4. Multicore
processors can give improved performance, but that may require software
written to exploit multiple CPUs.
I hope that you're aware that you'll need to replace your RAM and probably
the power supply as well as the motherboard and CPU. Fortunately, DDR2
memory is pretty cheap at the moment.
I'm not sure that I agree with another poster about PCI-E being significant.
It's the way to go for high-end graphics cards for gaming, but it may not
offer practical advantages over PCI for desktop users for other purposes.
There appears to be a lag in PCI-E card development, even if you were
prepared to replace all of your cards. For example: I have an Asus PCI-E
sound card. It is really a PCI card with some bridge circuitry, so that it
works in a PCI-E X1 slot. It has no better performance than the PCI version,
and it's a bit more awkward to use, as it requires a separate power
connection.
"muzician21" wrote in message
...
Right now I'm running a 2.4 gig P4 on a Soyo Dragon mobo. I could
upgrade to a socket 478 3.4gig processor and get about a 30% bump in
speed which wouldn't be bad, but it's my understanding going to a Core
2 Duo chip I could see a much bigger increase.
I dont need to be on the cutting edge, what Core 2 chips should I look
for that would net me about 3x the speed of that 2.4gig P4? I'm
favoring Intel unless you feel there's a really compelling reason to
go with someone else. .
I still want to run XP - all my software works with it and I'd like to
stay with PCI slots, not PCI express so I can swap over hardware I've
already got. The more PCI slots the better - like 5 or more. Does such
an animal exist - i.e. Core 2 duo system with lots of PCI slots?
Thanks for all input