Suggestions for Core 2 Duo systems that use PCI - not PCI express?

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

None.

While you would see improvement from any C2D over 2.4GHz, you won't likely
see anywhere near 3X the speed on anything.



If you stay with PCI, then you will choke your I/O to graphics, HDs, and
other peripherals that use the PCI bus. There's no sense in staying with
PCI if you want performance.

Why not? Except under very specific workloads, the P4's pipeline length
all but crippled the processor's responsiveness for day to day usage.

Hyperthreading partially addressed this, although it caused it's own set
of slowdowns.

A single Core 2 core is roughly 1.5x-2x faster then a similarly clocked
P4 CPU, one of the higher end Core 2 Duo processors should easily offer
3x-4x processing improvements over a P4.

In fairness, we're rarely CPU bound at all these days, so when it comes
to desktop performance comparing CPUs isn't always the best way to
start.


Depending on what sort of devices are connected, the PCI bus'
limitations may not matter. Sound cards, fax boards, even
SCSI-connected scanners and similar won't get near the PCI bus'
bandwidth limitations. Higher performance devices will make use of a
faster bus, but for most users their video card and possibly an
additional drive controller are about all that fit into that ballpark.

(okay okay, ethernet too in theory, but in practice how many users have
hardware that can sustain over PCI's practical transfer speeds over
ethernet?)

On Thu, 09 Apr 2009 11:51:20 -0700, DevilsPGD



Historically, people running a combination of Creative Labs
sound card and either GbE NIC, hard drive controller, or
video capture/tuner PCI cards have ran into problems, though
it also depends on the chipset as some have better PCI
performance than others.

Regardless, if the OP needs to use PCI cards then within
that requirement there would still be a significant
performance boost moving to a modern Core2 platform if the
right motherboard can be found.

y


Hmm. Looking at a chart like this

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/common_cpus.html

gives the impression there are CPU's that are many times faster.

What I'm mostly looking at is rendering times for processing video
such as through VirtuaDub and for creating DVD's. You feel I I won't
see "anywhere near" 3x the speed? If that's correct maybe just maxing
out the board with a faster socket 478 CPU isn't such a bad idea.