i'm going to just compare benchmarks. the differences in the lines have to do with things like encryption that don't concern me much.

my pentium D was fast when i bought it. i'm surprised it's even listed here, really. but, i've never had a performance issue, either. really, i haven't.

the 4th gen i3s are clearly a dramatic improvement over the D. i should notice it. it's good enough.

http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Pentium-D-340GHz-vs-Intel-Core-i3-4370/m5820vs2817

but what about the other board, with the ridiculous ram, just to compare?

the fastest 6th gen i7 is actually only about 50% faster than the fastest 4th gen i3, and some of them are actually slower. i don't know why intel is being so weird with it's names, but whatever.

here's another comparison:
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/494/Intel_Core_i3_i3-4370_vs_Intel_Core_i5_i5-6600K.html

...which is weird to me, because i thought the generation shifts were all about efficiency. how did the i3 end up more efficient? the i5 is twice as fast for hyperthreading, but i'm actually more concerned about single-threading, as i use a lot of older software, and i could very well be booting into 32-bit xp for quite a while, still. they're the same...

so.

my new machine will have this board/chip combo:
https://www.asus.com/ca-en/Motherboards/P9D_WS/specifications/  (~ 235 us)
http://ark.intel.com/products/77495/Intel-Core-i3-4370-Processor-4M-Cache-3_80-GHz (~$140 us)

if i want to stay in budget, that leaves me with around $200-$300 to build the rest of it, which is just going to be the case/psu, memory and some drives. but, it's an arbitrary ceiling. i wasn't expecting to upgrade desktop 2.

i've never put a machine together with my own hands from total scratch before. i'll have to think about that carefully. i might pay for assembly, just so i can blame somebody. plus, the stores have parts and cases. it might cost me less to pay for assembly than it would to pay for shipping.

or, maybe i can find it pre-assembled.

but, that's the new machine. it's not so new, absolutely. but, it will be a lot faster.

and, i guess i'd might as well swank it out with an ssd for programs and that extra 2 tb disc. i'll have to go through piece by piece and figure out where things ought to be before i decide exactly what i need. but, i should have ample optical drives, and most of the disc space, even. i'm going to need a second audiophile card, i guess. it's all very minor....