Desktop Question

I am running a p4 3ghz with 1 gig of ram and XP Pro. With the black Friday ads about out was wondering if I would see a big jump by going to a Q6600 quad with more ram and vista 64. If so does anyone have a motherboard recommendation? Have a little money that is burning a hole in my pocket.

You will see a noticeable improvement. But nothing to make you say "WOW". However I might do it anyway if it is cheap enough. I went from a 2ghz with 1.5 gig of ram to a 2.5 ghz quadcore with 4 gig of ram and was not overly impressed. The main problem I found out is that most programs are still not written to take advantage of multiple cores. So you end up running the program on only one core. Making the other 3 all but pointless. More and more programs are being written for multiple threads. So some speed is yet to come.

And as far as Win64, there is no real advantage yet. But I think we are about to see the 64 as the normal. If not in 7 then in the next windows.

I disagree, you will see a huge improvement if you're doing a large amount of work or multitasking. It does depend on some things which I'll mention later. The Q6600 will be dramatically faster than the P4 3Ghz and 4GB of RAM is cheap these days so if you go that route you'll definitely feel your computer running more smoothly when working with multiple files (or even just a few).

I had a P4 2.8Ghz running at 3.2Ghz with 2GB of RAM and the upgrade to a dual core E6600 2.4Ghz (OC'd to 3Ghz) with 4GB of RAM was very noticeable in RAW processing and photo editing, even just doing one at a time. I since upgraded that to 8GB RAM and a Q9450 2.66Ghz quad core (not overclocked) and have noticed another improvement although it's not as dramatic as the first upgrade was for most things unless I'm doing a lot of multitasking (which I tend to).

A lot of whether you will notice the difference will depend on how you use your computer and what software you use. Photoshop will make some use of multiple cores and Capture One (which I use for RAW processing) uses all four cores. It also depends on how much data you work with at once, including layers, and how many applications you tend to have running.

If you're a heavy multitasker or work with a number of images at once like I do then it's a very big difference going from the P4 and especially 1GB of RAM.

I personally would recommend checking out Vista 64 as it will allow you to put 4 or more GB of RAM to use and I've really had no big issues with it in about two years. It's fast and stable and all even most obscure software I have works with it now.

Thanks,
Will have to make up my mind soon for the sales. May just add a couple more gigs of ram to this machine and wait til next year. I need to change the video card(AGP) to upgrade to a flat screen. I was given a Radeon R9550 256MB DDR with Dvi so I can use a flat screen. Yes I know, yesterday's technology, but you work with what you have.

Oh and I will not be doing much more than using photoshop(power wise). Processing raw photo's one at a time. Guess I am trying to talk myself out of this. But I neeeed to spend money on something.

More RAM will definitely help with the system you've got now. 1GB isn't much these days. I just caution against investing too much money upgrading your current system because as you've noticed it's a bit of a dead end at this point.

Upgradeing to 50% cost of a new computer is my rule. And a computer, as you describe you are going to use it, is about $400.

I think upgrading will make the system much much faster. I recently got an Asus P5Q board (SE/R version, doesn't much matter though), 4GB Crucial RAM, a Q6600 chip and it files compared with my older dual core machine. Get a CPU cooler with a 120mm fan if you want it really quiet.

Asus P5Q Pro is $100 at Newegg right now. Excellent motherboard, and as Tim said pair it up with 4GB RAM and a Q6600 and you're shiny. You will have a big improvement fro your present system.

BottomBracket. I was looking at that setup. Newegg looks like it will have some HOT specials between now and Friday.

DC...I'm going thru the same upgrade lust from my P4...
I've learned a lot from this and other boards...one factor to consider is the version of Photoshop your using...for example...my PS6 I'm told won't work with WIN Vista (so I'm stuck getting a machine running XP...not the worst to live with, but not so many new PCs out there still run XP), and I've read that only the latest CS# takes advantage of quad cores...
...Tim and others have said to go for the quad...me...I say match the hardware to the software...when I decide to go from PS6 to CS#, who knows what hardware and OS advances will be available for me...
Like you, I don't expect to put a heavy load on my machine so I'm sticking to a core 2 duo, an E5200 with 4gb ram, a custom built job that'll run XP and that'll let me install a couple of PATA 120/200gb hard drives lying around here.
...it'll run $450, less $100 or whatever I can get for my P4...a bargain upgrade...a cheap enuf thrill to ease the craving...