New Computer Advice... Core 2 duo?

[Suerte]

Hey guys. Hope someone can point me in the right direction. I want to buy a new computer. I want a good computer, so Poker Tracker, ace hud, sixth sense, auto hotkey, and a poker site can run without problems at the same time. tracker and sixth sense take up a ton of cpu usage... and i have no idea what to purchase. People tell me core 2 duo but they seem pretty expensive.

My computer right now is old and slow. 256mb ddr, 80gb hard drive, 2.5gh.

What should I do? Thanks in advance!

[SBR]

Just buy some RAM and stick it in. If you're running windows XP 256 mb really isn't enough.

[Beavis68]

Core2 is the way to go if you want a new system, you should be able to get one for under 1k.

[KOTLP]

Any opinions on the AMD Athlon 64 X2's? I haven't been keeping up, and am about to build a new workstation to replace my 5 year old AMD MP 2000+ dual processor box.

[Suerte]

[ QUOTE ]
Just buy some RAM and stick it in. If you're running windows XP 256 mb really isn't enough.

[/ QUOTE ]

if i buy a gig of ram and stick it in, do you think that will be enough to get my computer to work w o slowing down too much?

[nuclear500]

If a 2.5GHz system is "slow" then you either need more memory or need to cleanup your systems spyware infection.

[Suerte]

i think ill get more mem. thanks for the advice

[hukilai]

256 Mb is barely enough to run Windows XP itself. You will need at least 512Mb to run office software, and more for memory intensive applications.

Poker software challenges CPU much more than memory, so though upgrading to 1 Gb will help to speed things up, but not as dramatic as new dual-core CPU.