Is it worth upgrading my desktop PC?

womble12345

I have an old Dell Inspiron 530 with an E2160 CPU, I bought it in 2008! I have upgraded it quite a bit over the years so it now has 4GB RAM, a 120GB SSD, extra PCI cards to add extra USB ports and also another very basic graphics card so I can run dual screens.
I work from home now (only ever did this once a week before coronavirus) and seeing as I remote desktop into a PC in the office using citrix my PC doesnt have to do a lot so that doesnt tax it at all.
My concerns recently are that I need to use MS Teams in Chrome on my PC (it wont work on the work PC) and this experience is very laggy as it seems to max out the CPU. I also note that checking my Gmail in Chrome takes CPU usage to 99%.
Are there any cheap upgrades that would be worthwhile or would that be throwing good money after bad and I would be better off with buying a refurbished Dell 7010 with a 3rd gen i5 for about £150? I can see I could upgrade the CPU to an E8400 for less than a fiver, would that help things? Or is it time to start again?
Thanks

dipsomaniac

if it was mine i would first back up and do a fresh install of win10 and see how it performs

TheRightOne

womble12345 said:

I have an old Dell Inspiron 530 with an E2160 CPU, I bought it in 2008! I have upgraded it quite a bit over the years so it now has 4GB RAM, a 120GB SSD, extra PCI cards to add extra USB ports and also another very basic graphics card so I can run dual screens.
I work from home now (only ever did this once a week before coronavirus) and seeing as I remote desktop into a PC in the office using citrix my PC doesnt have to do a lot so that doesnt tax it at all.
My concerns recently are that I need to use MS Teams in Chrome on my PC (it wont work on the work PC) and this experience is very laggy as it seems to max out the CPU. I also note that checking my Gmail in Chrome takes CPU usage to 99%.
Are there any cheap upgrades that would be worthwhile or would that be throwing good money after bad and I would be better off with buying a refurbished Dell 7010 with a 3rd gen i5 for about £150? I can see I could upgrade the CPU to an E8400 for less than a fiver, would that help things? Or is it time to start again?
Thanks

Cost £100. If £150, you are paying too much. I have linked to one costing £100 recently. Check posting history.

 Intel® Pentium® Processor E2160 is from 2006 and is weak
Check your Motherboard part number to see which CPU it can accept. Some Core2Duo and some Core2Quad.

 Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E8600 will be around £10.
https://www.dell.com/community/Inspiron-Desktops/Inspiron-530-CPU-Video-Card-and-RAM-upgrades/td-p/6061363

getmore4less

When I was running my 530 with 3GB was getting maxed out keeping stuff open.
I tried 8GB on a E2140 and it was OK for desktop work, the memory is with an E4500 now and it runs fine, both have SSD.
Could be quicker on some computational things but I can live with that.
(don't use teams or webmail)

womble12345

TheRightOne said:

womble12345 said:

I have an old Dell Inspiron 530 with an E2160 CPU, I bought it in 2008! I have upgraded it quite a bit over the years so it now has 4GB RAM, a 120GB SSD, extra PCI cards to add extra USB ports and also another very basic graphics card so I can run dual screens.
I work from home now (only ever did this once a week before coronavirus) and seeing as I remote desktop into a PC in the office using citrix my PC doesnt have to do a lot so that doesnt tax it at all.
My concerns recently are that I need to use MS Teams in Chrome on my PC (it wont work on the work PC) and this experience is very laggy as it seems to max out the CPU. I also note that checking my Gmail in Chrome takes CPU usage to 99%.
Are there any cheap upgrades that would be worthwhile or would that be throwing good money after bad and I would be better off with buying a refurbished Dell 7010 with a 3rd gen i5 for about £150? I can see I could upgrade the CPU to an E8400 for less than a fiver, would that help things? Or is it time to start again?
Thanks

Cost £100. If £150, you are paying too much. I have linked to one costing £100 recently. Check posting history.

 Intel® Pentium® Processor E2160 is from 2006 and is weak
Check your Motherboard part number to see which CPU it can accept. Some Core2Duo and some Core2Quad.

 Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E8600 will be around £10.
https://www.dell.com/community/Inspiron-Desktops/Inspiron-530-CPU-Video-Card-and-RAM-upgrades/td-p/6061363

Thanks, your link was to a desktop case and I really fancied a full tower which seems to be more expensive but I am sure I can get one for about £125 if I hunt around.
Do you think the E8600 or E8400 will make much of a difference? I have looked at the Passmark scores which are 627 for my current E2160 CPU and 1158 for the E8400. Does that kind of difference make a change to everyday usage? Does that mean where my CPU is currently at 50% usage it would only be at 25% usage on the E8400 because it is about double the speed?
Thanks

getmore4less

What are you going to put in a full tower that needs those bays?

poppellerant

womble12345 said:

My concerns recently are that I need to use MS Teams in Chrome on my PC (it wont work on the work PC) and this experience is very laggy as it seems to max out the CPU. I also note that checking my Gmail in Chrome takes CPU usage to 99%.

Have you tried another browser to see if you still get lag and high CPU usage doing the same tasks? If you use Windows 10, try Edge, otherwise try Firefox - I would normally advise against Internet Explorer, but for short term use as testing it shouldn't do any harm.

Frozen_up_north

My personal view is that a dual core processor from over 10 years ago is in need of scrapping. We have a slightly newer dual core laptop with 8GB of ram and an SSD, it boots very quickly but runs at roughly 1/10th the speed of a general purpose “office” laptop that I also have.

Some on this forum claim a dual core PC is fine with plenty of ram and an SSD, they must have a lot of patience!

TheRightOne

womble12345 said:

TheRightOne said:

womble12345 said:

I have an old Dell Inspiron 530 with an E2160 CPU, I bought it in 2008! I have upgraded it quite a bit over the years so it now has 4GB RAM, a 120GB SSD, extra PCI cards to add extra USB ports and also another very basic graphics card so I can run dual screens.
I work from home now (only ever did this once a week before coronavirus) and seeing as I remote desktop into a PC in the office using citrix my PC doesnt have to do a lot so that doesnt tax it at all.
My concerns recently are that I need to use MS Teams in Chrome on my PC (it wont work on the work PC) and this experience is very laggy as it seems to max out the CPU. I also note that checking my Gmail in Chrome takes CPU usage to 99%.
Are there any cheap upgrades that would be worthwhile or would that be throwing good money after bad and I would be better off with buying a refurbished Dell 7010 with a 3rd gen i5 for about £150? I can see I could upgrade the CPU to an E8400 for less than a fiver, would that help things? Or is it time to start again?
Thanks

Cost £100. If £150, you are paying too much. I have linked to one costing £100 recently. Check posting history.

 Intel® Pentium® Processor E2160 is from 2006 and is weak
Check your Motherboard part number to see which CPU it can accept. Some Core2Duo and some Core2Quad.

 Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E8600 will be around £10.
https://www.dell.com/community/Inspiron-Desktops/Inspiron-530-CPU-Video-Card-and-RAM-upgrades/td-p/6061363

Thanks, your link was to a desktop case and I really fancied a full tower which seems to be more expensive but I am sure I can get one for about £125 if I hunt around.
Do you think the E8600 or E8400 will make much of a difference? I have looked at the Passmark scores which are 627 for my current E2160 CPU and 1158 for the E8400. Does that kind of difference make a change to everyday usage? Does that mean where my CPU is currently at 50% usage it would only be at 25% usage on the E8400 because it is about double the speed?
Thanks

Yes it does make a change to everyday usage. The E2160 is not even VT-x capable.
But seriously, we are talking about £5 to £10. Really not worth the agonising.
I have an old Optiplex 780. The E8400 does everything I need to do with an inexpensive graphics card on board and that is to play high quality Full HD media. YMMV.

getmore4less

Frozen_up_north said:

My personal view is that a dual core processor from over 10 years ago is in need of scrapping. We have a slightly newer dual core laptop with 8GB of ram and an SSD, it boots very quickly but runs at roughly 1/10th the speed of a general purpose “office” laptop that I also have.

Some on this forum claim a dual core PC is fine with plenty of ram and an SSD, they must have a lot of patience!

My Web pages are loading fast enough. 
Videos and sound is at normal speed at monitor native resolution. .
Spreadsheets are loaded and process fast enough (some big ONS ones)
At the same time multiple monitors. 

fred246

I am using a dual core processor from 10 years ago with 2GB of RAM and an SSD. I am quite capable of upgrading PCs and will do when I feel there is a need. I never have any problems. Everything is pretty instantaneous. Videos are fine. I sometimes wonder if it's how you use PCs though. I know what I need and don't download rubbish that will slow me down.