Upgrading from dual core to quad core

[Dave2999]

Hi all. Firstly my apologies if this subject has been covered, but I couldn't find anything on search.

I have an Icon Elite Pro Desktop PC from Novatech:

Vista Home
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4600+ 2.40GHz (Standard)
4Gb RAM (Upgraded)
ATI Radeon HD 4870 Graphics card & new power supply (Upgraded)

I am still finding some games are struggling though, unless set to the lowest quality settings. I'm trying to find out if it is possible to upgrade from dual core to quad core as researching the internet, most games made now are optimised to run under the minimum of quad core setup. Basically can my motherboard support an upgrade? My computer knowledge is lacking so I'm not even sure what motherboard I have, maybe others on here have the same/similar system?

Many thanks. Dave.

[jrk86]

First thing you need to do is look at the spec's of your motherboard and make sure it can support the quad-core processor you may be looking to buy. I know in the past I had a Giga-byte motherboard and Giga-byte on their website had all their motherboard models and their spec's. I found my model and then they also included a CPU support list that would tell me all the model's of processors my motherboard could handle. I would think all MB manufactures would have this information somewhere for their MB models. But although the motherboard may say it supports Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad, it does not mean it supports all of them.