Do I need a better PC?

bsod

rizla01 wrote: »

declutter & defrag look like happening this weekend and then - perhaps - out with the spondoolies.

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waste of time, re-install. The processor is never the problem.

rizla01

bsod wrote: »

waste of time, re-install. The processor is never the problem.

Re-install will not clear the other partitions though, unless I format the lot.

Might do a re-install after.

bsod

the content of other partitions isn't going to affect how fast google maps or ebay loads.

forgotmyname

Even if you swap out for a 4,6 or even 8 core processor your unlikely to see much speed increase.unless your into something that requires a lot of processing power.

Tinkering with 3D rendering on a similar spec machine to yours, I have the same files as some guy doing a tutorial on youtube and even though his machine is an dual 8core system with 24GB RAM etc actually program loading and switching menu;s is barely any different on his machine to mine.

Obviously in the rendering his system jumps ahead and can do stuff in 12 minutes where mine took 22.

Actually loading the files into the program is all within 1 second of his machine.

custardy

I run a laptop of the same era as an emergency back up.
I run XP to keep it pootling along.
TBH it wouldnt cost much to pick up a 2nd hand machine leagues ahead of what you have.

prost

On my previous dual core sometimes Ebay didn't need much processor power. However, sometimes 100% was needed from both cores. On such occasions all other software is going to be impacted too. That's why more cores would benefit as Windows (& Linux) uses all cores to run the operating system. However, if the offending software was only designed to use one core then a core increase would have no gain but an increase in the processor's clock frequency would.


For some software & some games the use of L3 cache in the processor would also see a significant gain. See
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-phenom-athlon-64-x2,1746.html


Defragmentation should not be done on an SSD drive. For Vista, 7 & 8 the system is already configured to run defrag on a regular basis—generally 1 AM every Wednesday. You can check for yourself by opening up Disk Defragmenter. If your drive hasn’t been defragged in a while you might have to start doing it manually. Shut down all your other software including antivirus so you might want it done overnight.

Having it done every week, however, is I think too much.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/the-importance-of-disk-defragmentation/




*******ADDITION*******
My previous AMD dual core also ran at 2.6GHz, like yours. I ran some benchmarks before & after replacing it with the 45-watt 4-core 2.4Ghz Athlon II X4 610e. Neither processor had L3 cache.

Converting a webm video file to mp4 took 2m30s, both cores used 100%. On the 610e it took one minute exactly, all 4 cores 100% used.

With 3 Web browsers open, LibreOffice & my other usual software the dual core idled at 30% processor use. With the 610e it idled at 10%.

Compressing 16Gb of files into one file took the dual core 27m30s, both cores 100%. On the 610e two of the four cores did no work whilst the other two alternated so effectively only one core was used. It took a little less time, 23m40s.

Playing a webm video with the dual core the media software uses 9% processor power. On the 610e it's 2%.

Next, the “Ebay heart-attack test”: for some reason Ebay (on Firefox) sends both cores on the dual core to a dizzy 100%. On the 610e one core reached 100%.


On the dual core encoding a 5-minute mp3 takes minutes with 100% on both cores. On the 610e it takes 5 seconds for one core.


With the Unigine Heaven 3D demo 100% was used on both cores of the dual core getting 15 frames/sec. On the 610e each core took it in turn to take the load & when doing so 100% use was only very brief. It reached 22 frames/sec.

There's people even today with AM3 motherboards buying dual-core & Sempron one-core processors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gy2jZTaaGw
shows the improvement between 2 & 4 cores in some common modern 3D games. In Crysis 3 there's only a slight improvement but for the others it's much greater.

Certain types of software aren't demanding enough to make use of more cores so, of course, there's no gain in going from, say, 2 to 8.

Sometimes Web browsers are very busy. (I think Twitter & Ebay constantly add to their code & this is will continue into the future.) With a dual core both cores would be used at 100%. With 3+ cores each core would take their turn at taking the load.

Intel's top dual cores are much faster than AMD's, however, but on Ebay you can get AMD 3- & 4-cores for a reasonable price.

tronator

prost wrote: »

However, if the offending software was only designed to use one core then a core increase would have no gain but an increase in the processor's clock frequency would.

In this case multiple cores are still beneficial. If one program maxes out one core, the OS and all other programs will still run smoothly as the still can use the other cores.

ptrichardson

Ok, just did a few checks, and as I suspected, no you cannot upgrade the CPU beyond 1-2 models from what you have - totally pointless and throwing money down the drain.

Your system is 9 years old tech. Yep, that CPU was launched in 2006. Its never going to run quickly today.

I wouldn't even recommend a new graphics card or SSD in this system - its just not worth it when you can buy a modern lowest end machine for about £220 which will kick sand in the face of your current machine.


If you want to eek some more life out of it - 2 options

1 - Easy - Run Glary Utilities. Run everything it does and see if it helps
2 - Format and install a vanilla version of Windows on it (not the recovery disk, that thing will be full of bloatware)




**Whoever said Ebay used a lot of processing power - wow. Web browsing is about the lowest power draw on a PC.

bsod

cpu speed is constant, age doesn't matter.

Buying a new machine rather than re-installing is a cyclical mugs game, there will always be processors that can kick sand in the face of others, and there will always be crap software and configuration that makes that fancy cpu appear like a POS a few months after you bought it, when it isn't.

chris105

If you are running windows first check your windows experience index (under Computer->properties) and see what is slowing thing down. In case of my 8 year old quad core PC it was the hard disk. I just replaced it with an SSD a month ago, my PC now feels like the i7 I use at my workplace !!
SSD is worth it, even if you are still not satisfied you can install the SSD in the new system.