Processor effect

taz

taz

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Ian
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OK, so I MAY be looking for a new computer running Windows 7.
We've always used Dell and I keep my eye on bargains in the Outlet.
All the ones I'm interested in (in my price range) seem to have the Intel CoreTM 2 Duo processor (2500). Not the fastest by any means.
BUT, given that the system will have 6 to 8 gig of RAM and a 1gb video card will it actually matter that much or should I hold out for a Quad core or i5/7 processor?
Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated.
 
The speed of your computer is dependant on all the components that are being used by whatever is happening at the time! The speed can be improved by upgrading the limiting factor.

SO

If your processor is the cause of the bottle-neck then replacing that with something faster will improve the speed. If the memory is a limiting factor then increasing that will improve the speed etc etc

If you upgrade an item that IS the limiting factor then you can get a dramatic improvement, upgrading something that isn't may make a small improvement.

So what this means is that you want a system that is balanced for the task you are giving it. If you play games then you want a decent graphics card for example, which you might not need if you are running office applications.

The processor you mentioned is not exactly slow so coupled with a decent amount of RAM, a decent fast hard drive and a good motherboard you should have a well rounded system. You could improve it by upgrading items but that would depend on your budget.

If you are running office apps, pp software etc then upgrading to a quad core is going to improve matters but not by a massive amount. I use a macbook pro laptop most of the time but have a mac pro desktop. The desktop has more memory and four Xeon cores but using applications and even Photoshop you cannot really see much of a difference because most things happen instantly on the laptop anyway!
 
Taz, whats your budget, i might be able to help, also give me your expected spec for your budget.

Im currently running an XPS 420 with a 3.16MHz core 2 duo processor and Win XP and its a blast, it out performs all of the quad cores running Vista ive ever owned and ive had a few.

The XPS 420 was only available with Vista so Dell dont provide the drivers for XP, its a bit fiddly trying to downgrade to XP but its more than worth it, you lose the mini view function but that was a joke in the first place.
 
TBH, the machines I've been seeing are less than £400 but that is basic price - I haven't tried to 'buy' one to get the total delivered price.
The machine would be for my wife (I get her hand me downs). She designs websites so she often has loads of windows open and running dreamweaver/fireworks and flipping between tabs.
She had a warning message the other day which I think was out of memory (or running low) so I guess she had too much open - current machine has 4gb RAM.
Just a thought, as she has so much open at once, would two monitors be of help. I'm out of my depth these days with IT. I used to try to keep up, buying mags etc but haven't done that since the pentium came out.
 
taz said:
She had a warning message the other day which I think was out of memory (or running low) so I guess she had too much open - current machine has 4gb RAM.
Click to expand...

You dont get a warning message normally about too little RAM was it not about hard disc space? If so maybe a new HD might sort it out.
 
I can't remember what it was (neither can Jill - she can't even remember having a message)).
She currently has two 320gb disks and the C drive (programs only) has 254gb free, the D drive (data) has 182gb free.
 
I think the answer to this depends on what you want to do with your PC. For video editing, image processing etc, then CPU and RAM matters. For applications when disk reads/writes are intensive then the hard disk is going to be the bottleneck and almost no matter how much CPU power you have won't make any difference.

I think we are starting to see that disk striping is almost becoming mandatory to keep up with today's fast CPUs. You only have to look at the youtube video of the team who put a bunch of SSD drives in a RAID array to see whats possible.
 
chrisgeary said:
I think the answer to this depends on what you want to do with your PC. For video editing, image processing etc, then CPU and RAM matters. For applications when disk reads/writes are intensive then the hard disk is going to be the bottleneck and almost no matter how much CPU power you have won't make any difference.

I think we are starting to see that disk striping is almost becoming mandatory to keep up with today's fast CPUs. You only have to look at the youtube video of the team who put a bunch of SSD drives in a RAID array to see whats possible.
Click to expand...

Now you're starting to lose me
 
What I'm trying to say (and apparently failing to) is that operations to a single hard disk are much much slower than operations to memory. As soon as your application requires intensive disk read/write operations, it almost doesn't matter how fast your CPU is because the disk is the bottleneck. There are ways to mitigate that, such as multiple disks in a striped array (that is several hard disks that appear as one and the data is read/written across them all simultaneously).

So some idea of how you will use your PC will help answer your original question.
 
cowasaki said:
You dont get a warning message normally about too little RAM was it not about hard disc space? If so maybe a new HD might sort it out.
Click to expand...

Windows will pop up a message about running out of virtual memory* though, if the paging file is set too small.
You can increase the size of this in the System properties applet in control panel.

* This is an area of disk that windows uses as "memory" when it runs out of physical RAM.
 
taz said:
Just a thought, as she has so much open at once, would two monitors be of help. I'm out of my depth these days with IT. I used to try to keep up, buying mags etc but haven't done that since the pentium came out.
Click to expand...

The IT mantra of "More is almost always better" still stands. Two monitors will not speed the machine up any, but it will make doing the actual work loads quicker as she'll not be having to tab through open windows as much.
 
taz said:
TBH, the machines I've been seeing are less than £400 but that is basic price - I haven't tried to 'buy' one to get the total delivered price.
The machine would be for my wife (I get her hand me downs). She designs websites so she often has loads of windows open and running dreamweaver/fireworks and flipping between tabs.
She had a warning message the other day which I think was out of memory (or running low) so I guess she had too much open - current machine has 4gb RAM.
Just a thought, as she has so much open at once, would two monitors be of help. I'm out of my depth these days with IT. I used to try to keep up, buying mags etc but haven't done that since the pentium came out.
Click to expand...

Youre never going to get a new Dell for £400 with a 1gb video card and 6-8 gb ram and a decent processor
 
I didn't say new - I said from the Outlet.
This one is refurbished
Inspiron 545 Minitower with Colour Bezel CK767
Optical Drive 16X DVD ROM Drive 94C47
Dell Quietkey Black Keyboard DJ330
Optical Drive 16X DVD+/-RW Drive DXP63
Bezel Colour White F931N
Graphics 1024 MB nVidia GeForce GT220 G196P
Operating System English Genuine Windows 7 Professional (64 BIT) MMV17
Media Card Reader 19-in-1 NGTG1
Memory 8192MB (4x2048) 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel R556J
Mouse Dell Wheel USB 2 Button Scroll Black TH968
1TB HD ( 7200 ) XN183
Certified Refurbished
Base Warranty-1 yr Collect and Return

Delivered price £444.77 (base price £386 something)

Ian
 
Inspirons are made out of Ice, get them anywhere near heat and they melt, the GT220 is a total waste of space and will probably overheat, you can bet its also got a seriously lacking power supply, probably a cheap 250w unit.

In all seriousness i have loads of experience with Dell laptop and desktops and i would steer clear of the Inspiron range, they use the cheapest components available to them, you dont even get half decent upgrade options for the processor or graphics card because they would need to use a far better and more expensive power supply, unless they have changed their warranty options on the Inspiron lately you dont even get the option to upgrade to over the first year, ask yourself why.

It makes far more economical sense to buy a Vostro from the 400/420 range from a reseller, for a similar price you get proven business class quality components, good upgradability and 3 years next day business warranty.
 
I know RAM isnt expensive but I really cant see anyone needing 8gb of RAM unless they are editing videos and even then you would need a decent processor to go with it.

Quad core processors will obviously be better and combined with 4gb+ of RAM will fly

If your budget is around £400-£500 you may need to stick with the dual core
 
Gary Coyle said:
Inspirons are made out of Ice, get them anywhere near heat and they melt, the GT220 is a total waste of space and will probably overheat, you can bet its also got a seriously lacking power supply, probably a cheap 250w unit.

In all seriousness i have loads of experience with Dell laptop and desktops and i would steer clear of the Inspiron range, they use the cheapest components available to them, you dont even get half decent upgrade options for the processor or graphics card because they would need to use a far better and more expensive power supply, unless they have changed their warranty options on the Inspiron lately you dont even get the option to upgrade to over the first year, ask yourself why.

It makes far more economical sense to buy a Vostro from the 400/420 range from a reseller, for a similar price you get proven business class quality components, good upgradability and 3 years next day business warranty.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that. We had Dell for some time - my wife's machine is currently a Vostro and I've got her old Dimension 5150. The optical drives on the Vostro are a bit flimsy but apart from that we haven't had any trouble. Having said that I seem to recall having a problem about 3 days out of warranty but we re-formatted and it's been OK since then (January?) - famous last words.
 
As i said before im using a core 2 duo 3.16MHz processor and iut blows clean out of the water all of the quad core machines ive used, my core 2 duo runs XP and the quad cores have run Vista.

Im currently using an XPS 420 which was originally loaded with Vista but i downgraded, ive owned quad core 2.8MHz machines running Vista and they absolutly stunk compared my my dual core.

Ive run all means of Dells using all sorts of processors and every operating system and so far the best combo ive come acroos by a country mile is XP with a core 2 duo E8500 processor and that includes win 7 machines with i7 processors and shed loads of ram and doing video editing.

Its how a machine is set up and how all its individual components work together which is more importand than just a "fast" processor.

My old 1.86MHz core 2 duo machine would blow away todays 2.33, 2.4 and 2.5 MHz quad cores.
 
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