cheap C2D upgrade worth it coming from p4 prescot?

[undermined]

ok so I'm checking the net for deals and I see that Fry's has a C2D e8400+mobo w/ onboard video for about $130 and newegg has a case + drive combo for about $100 and I have around $250 to spend.

The system I have now is a p4 550 3.4ghz w/ HT,1GB ddr pc3200, a pcpower cooling 510watt psu, and a agp Geforce 7800gs.

I want a new case since I'm rocking a antec performance plus tower that still uses 80mm fans but for the price I'm thinking I can toss together a quieter system with a better CPU and suffer with the onboard video for a bit until I can manage some funds for a mid-range card of some sort.

Originally I had planned to just keep waiting since DDR2 is climbing in price and get a CoreI5 with ddr3 later but I could reuse my PSU a I can get a gig of ddr2 to make a functioning C2D system.

So my question is would you bother with a C2D based system at this point of keep saving?

I probably wont overclock and wont be able to game with the onboard video so I'm not sure the extra speed would be noticed off the bat, but a new case+newer larger harddrive with the potential of a pci-e GPU in the future are making it very hard to decide?

[Poci]

If your on a budget you might be better off with AMD.

Only intels worth buying now are the core i5 or core i7

Phenom IIs are cheaper and perform on par with core2s and they also game better.

Plus onboard graphics on AMDs are better then anything intel can offer

[jsc1973]

What he said.

If you did this upgrade, your computer would be much faster, but unless you were doing something very CPU-intensive, you wouldn't notice much.

For $250, you can put together a system based on an AMD processor that will be just as fast or faster than that C2D, along with a motherboard that will support halfway decent integrated graphics.

[StillFunkyB]

What are you using the PC for? If you just wanting to start a base system and upgrade along the way, AMD has a more affordable upgrade path.

If you were to upgrade now you will notice a difference when multi-tasking. Based on the age of your hardware, I'm guessing your not playing any of the latest games. It really depends on what you plan on doing.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that i5 and i7 are the only Intel products worth buying. There is still value in the Core 2 line.

Like I said, it all plans on what your using your PC for. If your just browsing the web, working from home, and email etc.. You might just want to save up some more and skip the Core 2 upgrade. Don't overlook AMD either, as they might not have the performance crown they still offer good bang for the buck.

[Windrunner]

Wait until black friday sales.