Better upgrade - CPU or RAM?

[Jimmy the Greek]

I'm trying to upgrade the following system for a friend:

E6600 @ 3.0 GHz
Gigabyte P35-DS3L
Radeon 4350
2GB (2x1GB) Corsair DDR2 800
OCZ Vertex 60GB SSD
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

I'm buying one of the new Sandforce drives because the Vertex doesn't cut the mustard, but am also considering either a CPU or RAM upgrade. They don't game, and only use the computer for internet and email.

Would it make more sense to upgrade to a low-end quad such as Q8300, 4GB (2x2GB) of DDR2 1066, or are they both pointless?

 

[defaultluser]

Ram. Windows 7 is hungry for it. I wouldn't run Windows 7 with less than 4GB, even just for general use. If you have more ram, Windows will preload more applications, and that means everything will run faster.

The extra cores in a quad core would not get used much beyond 2 cores unless they do lots of video transcoding. And 3.0 GHz dual core is plenty for smooth multitasking and fast single-threaded performance.

Out of curiosity: what about the Vertex doesn't cut the mustard? I have an Agility 60GB, and it's wonderful. Sandforce is really only going to be a benefit if you do LOTS of file writes, with their advanced approach to write amplification.

 

[Dangman]

For internet and email, I see ZERO reason to upgrade to a quad-core.

 

[Fantasysage]

Ram, and maybe a CPU cooler to rock that CPU a bit higher. I just built my parents a similar rig with an e6550 and it runs fine for email, web and office. I think the key difference is the 4 gigs of ram.

But honestly, that rig is fine for what they need once you get them 4 gigs of ram.

 

[Jimmy the Greek]

Out of curiosity: what about the Vertex doesn't cut the mustard? I have an Agility 60GB, and it's wonderful. Sandforce is really only going to be a benefit if you do LOTS of file writes, with their advanced approach to write amplification.

The Vertex was slower than the 80GB X25-M systems I've put together for several people, even though the X25-M systems all had weaker CPUs. Boot time, opening of certain programs is noticeably longer. 4K Random writes topped out at 10MB/s on the Vertex, compared to 70 on the Intels.

Supposedly, Sandforce is even better than the Intel, so we'll probably go with that.

 

[70 Polara]

Another vote for 4GB, I need to do the same myself, I kick myself for not loading up on 4GB DDR2 kits when they were being practically given away a while back!!!!!!!!!! Even my overclocked Celeron E3200 does every thing I need it to do including lots of gaming, so that E6600 should still hold it's own for most everything they could want to do. It seems that 4GB is the sweet spot for Windows 7 64-bit for general computing.