Vostro 1500: which processor?

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5470 (1.6GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB)
Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Basic
15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA LCD Display
2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz, 2 DIMM
120G 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
8X CD/DVD Burner w/ double-layer DVD+R write capability, w/o Roxio Creator
256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8600M GT
Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g Wi-Fi Mini Card
No Webcam Option
High Definition Audio 2.0

I have the above configuration for a Vostro 1500. I plan to keep it for the next four years at least, and I'd like to use it for gaming for as long as possible (although I don't mind playing games on medium-low settings), so I'm wondering whether I should spend the $195 to upgrade to a T7300 processor. How much of an increase in performance would I see?

Also, should I change the wi-fi card? I don't know anything about the various networks, but I'll be on a college campus with wireless service. Will I be able to install a new card later if I want something different? And does this card allow you to plug in an ethernet cable for wired use?

 

well i doubt you'll be able to game on this for 4 years( at least not with new games).
But to answer your questions, upgrading to &300 you'll probalby get 10%-20% performance increase(depends on the application).
just choose the cheapest wifi card, college wifi have pretty strong signals and you are not going to get to the N standards speed on those networks anyways, so save your money.
the computer comes with a ethernet port

one last suggestion, choose 1gb RAM and upgrade it yourself, its a $60 upgrade yourself($40 dollars if you sell your 1gb over ebay as well). The upgrade is exceedingly simple

 

So the 1.8 isn't really woth the $120 price tag? Im going to be using it alot with mulitasking - excel, prwpoint, word all at the same time, plus other applications running in the back ground. I don't want to shell out more money for the 2.0ghz but if there is only a 10% increase from 1.6-1.8 maybe its not worth it.

 

for excel powerpoint, word etc you are not going to notice a difference, even if you do multitask. a 10% increase in alot of cases are not even noticeable outside of benchmark scores. Ohh word loaded up in 1.8 seconds instead of 2 seconds