Upgrading a PC(2)

TheRightOne

fenwick458 said:

I didn't realise I was looking at different generations to be honest! 
what about this https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dell-OptiPlex-7040-SFF-Core-i7-6th-Gen-8GB-RAM-256GB-512GB-SSD-Windows-10-Pro-PC/114544458769?var=414728110917

Nice, it seems that you finally woke up to my suggestion. The Optiplex devices that I mentioned take NVMe SSD. So you can have both SATA SSD and NVMe SSD within the device. NVMe SSD can reach up to 3000 MB/s as compared to around 550 with SATA III SSD.

But more importantly...to which school did you attend. I would suing them






120%? Really?

fenwick458

I never claimed to be good at maths, but all I was going off was the comparison site, see the screenshot below 
but yes you were right, and I did take your advise. For someone that doesn't know all the computer lingo its not easy to figure out. but after a few days of looking at specs and googling and forum posts I think o might have got there. Looking back now it would be utter madness to spend £100 to upgrade a j2900 when for only another £120 you can get much better

TheRightOne

fenwick458 said:

I never claimed to be good at maths, but all I was going off was the comparison site, see the screenshot below 
but yes you were right, and I did take your advise. For someone that doesn't know all the computer lingo its not easy to figure out. but after a few days of looking at specs and googling and forum posts I think o might have got there. Looking back now it would be utter madness to spend £100 to upgrade a j2900 when for only another £120 you can get much better

Ahhh...I didn't see that someone referred to the Userbenchmark website. All in good fun.
Actually I think the old PC is worth upgrading; but only with an inexpensive SSD. £20 will do it. That will improve it's usability considerably. Start up and fully loaded in seconds. Everything much more snappy. A good secondary device for browsing and entertainment. 

DCFC79

fenwick458 said:

I didn't realise I was looking at different generations to be honest! 
what about this https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dell-OptiPlex-7040-SFF-Core-i7-6th-Gen-8GB-RAM-256GB-512GB-SSD-Windows-10-Pro-PC/114544458769?var=414728110917

Hi @Jeepers_Creepers Im also looking for a base unit, if I were to see a i7 6th gen for around £260 it would be worth it ?

Jeepers_Creepers

Hi DCF.

Argh - I'm really not that clued up, so would be more comfy if a proper boff would answer this sort of stuff. It struck me, tho', that the 6th-Gen i7 that Fen found was really good value. It should shoot through most jobs with absolute ease - and even load up to desktop in only around 10 seconds - but what it won't do is heavy games; it ain't a gaming machine. For that it would need a dedicated graphics card.

I can certainly recommend Tom's Hardware for advice - there's a great forum on there, tho' it can get a bit - whoooosh - at times. But if you were to post a link to a specific PC - like the one you have - and also tell them what you intend to use it for (very important), they'll point you in the right direction.

Jeepers_Creepers

Fen, that i7 machine will make you chuckle when you compare it with your Pentium.

A completely different league in performance.

TheRightOne

DCFC79 said:

fenwick458 said:

I didn't realise I was looking at different generations to be honest! 
what about this https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dell-OptiPlex-7040-SFF-Core-i7-6th-Gen-8GB-RAM-256GB-512GB-SSD-Windows-10-Pro-PC/114544458769?var=414728110917

Hi @Jeepers_Creepers Im also looking for a base unit, if I were to see a i7 6th gen for around £260 it would be worth it ?

Not sure as to why you are putting it on JC when it was my suggestion in the first place.

You can spend around £150 on a decent device; such an an Optiplex 3050, 5040 or 7040. 

Shame you missed the £39 off yesterday. 

getmore4less

It is surprising how well the old ones perform once they get the SSD treatment.

My old core2 duo 4500 with 8GB and a cheap graphics card, for day to day plenty fast enough to run browsing multiple(20+) tabs and video running on one screen.
Open office OK with decent sized spreadsheets(doing analysis of some of the covid data ones) 

Switching tabs applications is fine and loading fast enough.

That j2900 would be fine with the SSD would probably benefit from better graphics support, not sure what would fit that case.

Might even be enough to support the CCTV with 3 cameras. 

Definitely not a throw away. 

Jeepers_Creepers

I agree about SSDs - they are transformative.

Can be a hassle to install for those uncertain of the procedure, tho' - having to clone one to the other, or simply starting completely afresh.

Fen did do a system performance check on his current PC and that showed the CPU as touching 100% as soon as he fired up the third camera. How well this reflects the reality of the situation, I dunno, but he certainly shouldn't have issues with the i7 he's considering. And he can either keep the Pentium as it is as a second machine, or sell it on as a general home-use PC which it's perfectly good as.

I know what I would do.

fenwick458

I've ordered the i7 for £221, getting delivered Monday.
looking on ebay it would appear my old one is worth at least £50 so I'll probably sell that, or else it will just gather dust in my loft until it's worth absolutely nothing
and the CPU usage seemed to be 50-60% just with chrome open, viewing any cams at all (even one) and it was up to 100%, and then anything on top of that it would just freeze up for 5-10 secs at a time, and be very difficult to get back under control. definitely time for an upgrade