zlemflolia Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 Is an i5 processor worth it over an i3 Consider a hypothetical scenario of running a moderate CPU usage java based online game, a 10-man skype call, iTunes converting the file format of many albums at once, and a virus scan running in the background Could an i3 handle this Would an i5 be worth it Current specs: MS Windows XP Professional SP2 Intel Pentium D CPU 2.66GHz 894MB RAM ATI Radeon Xpress 200 graphics card Really starting to notice annoying lag with these specs. Looking to modernize and get Windows 7 etc with hopefully an i5-2500 processor Looking to spend under $700 What is a good graphics card? Can I use my old graphics card on a new computer? I don't know enough about to computers to decide. Could I just buy more RAM upgrades and maybe a new processor (or can you even replace processors?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest iep Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 pentium4/athlon running XP SP3. 150-200$. foggetabout win7. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest iep Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 geez i just realized that that would be a downgrade. i'm doing stuff like that on a dinosaur. sort ur shit out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ego Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 Consider a hypothetical scenario of running a moderate CPU usage java based online game, a 10-man skype call, iTunes converting the file format of many albums at once, and a virus scan running in the background That may be a bit much for an i3, which is only dual-core. Which java based online game? What is a good graphics card? Can I use my old graphics card on a new computer That ATI Radeon Xpress 200 is a PCI-E card? If so, it wouldn't be a problem. Could I just buy more RAM upgrades and maybe a new processor (or can you even replace processors?) You can but the processor you upgrade to has to fit the same socket. The Pentium D uses a LGA 775 which is compatible up to the Intel Core 2 generation. You can't fit an i5 or i3 on your current motherboard. You have very few RAM right now so that could make a significant difference. But the Pentium D is pretty old so it might still feel sluggish while multitasking. You can get a rig with something like a AMD Phenom II X64 965 and 4-8GB DDR3 RAM for your budget. You can probably get a better processor if you keep your current GPU. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chenGOD Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 you should pick up an altair 8800 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zlemflolia Posted December 17, 2011 Author Share Posted December 17, 2011 I hear that even i3 is better than any AMD processors ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YO303 Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 Get a job Buy a mac ???? Profit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest disparaissant Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 http://www.newegg.co...k=aspire%205552 i got dat only it has a bigger hard drive and it was just under 400 bones on sale only complaint is that the headphones jack is super super fragile otherwise its great for the price it can certainly do what you want it to currently watching netflix with 12 tabs open, a 118mb psd with like 45,000 text layers on it, torrenting at max speed, a 200 meg pdf open, and 4 instances of word. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ego Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 I hear that even i3 is better than any AMD processors? No the Phenom II X4 965 is a quad core that isn't as fast as an i5, but it's quite a bit cheaper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest disparaissant Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 actually the processor i got (phenom x4 n970) rates right with the i5 mobile offerings sucks batteries down like nothin though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Dylan Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 Keep your old PC man it's not worth it. Fuck this consommation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 Well i just a couple months ago upgraded from a p4 to a c2d and notice a huge difference. I think the i3 would be plenty fast, even some of the amd equivalents might be great too. Just throw that fucking pentium d in the garbage when you do though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zlemflolia Posted December 17, 2011 Author Share Posted December 17, 2011 Well i just a couple months ago upgraded from a p4 to a c2d and notice a huge difference. I think the i3 would be plenty fast, even some of the amd equivalents might be great too. Just throw that fucking pentium d in the garbage when you do though Everyone says pentium is crap Why tho. Mines 2.66GHz and the i3 is like 2.8-3.1 What's the difference? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest viscosity Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 just upgraded to an Athlon II X4 640, + 4GB of DDR3 ram and a Radeon HD 6870 'puter's hard disk needs a good scrubbin' but it's nice an speedy again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goDel Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 Well i just a couple months ago upgraded from a p4 to a c2d and notice a huge difference. I think the i3 would be plenty fast, even some of the amd equivalents might be great too. Just throw that fucking pentium d in the garbage when you do though Everyone says pentium is crap Why tho. Mines 2.66GHz and the i3 is like 2.8-3.1 What's the difference? The amount of cores in the processor. The new chips have some extra cores which come in mighty handy when multitasking/hyperthreading. The amount of GHz has not been relevant since the release of multicore processors. What kind of money do you want to spend? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 weren't the pentium d's especially shitty though? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fred McGriff Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 i would never buy a PC cuz i'm creative Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awesomeperson Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 I have the i3 2100, it's quite fast and for me it's perfect but I wouldn't recommend it for serious multi-tasking, it's better to get a true 4 core processor for that like the i5 2400. I don't know how heavy Skype is but every task you mentioned the i3 wouldn't have any issue running them all at the same time, the problem is the built in HD2000 graphics chip, it's quite weak, specially if you're running Aero. I plan on upgrading to the new Ivy Bridge processors that should come out next year. Compare some benchs to get a better idea: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/289?vs=363 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BCM Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 Well i just a couple months ago upgraded from a p4 to a c2d and notice a huge difference. I think the i3 would be plenty fast, even some of the amd equivalents might be great too. Just throw that fucking pentium d in the garbage when you do though Everyone says pentium is crap Why tho. Mines 2.66GHz and the i3 is like 2.8-3.1 What's the difference? it's not all about the clock speed you know...there are many other factors that determine how "fast" your computer is. the i3 and i5 processors can process much more data at once than the old generation pentiums through multithreading and the like, but still run at the same clock rate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rubin Farr Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 I hear 2 guys in California are building one in their garage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chaosmachine Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 [youtubehd]l2-UuIEOcss[/youtubehd] this is a good site to compare theoretical performance differences between processors: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/ so, pick a cpu, then build a system around it. look for a mobo/ram/cpu bundle on newegg.com. on the other hand, cpus don't mean much anymore. get a couple cores, something released in the last 2 years, and you're good. they're all fast enough. what matters much more is having 4 gigs of ram and an ssd. running out of ram and hitting a slow hard drive are the things that cause, real, perceptible lag. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MAXIMUS MISCHIEF Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 get a big 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bubba69 Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 you can build an amazing PC for under $700. Easily. check out http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc it is a good resource I think and you can usually post builds there I think and get feedback. Or check out 4chan.org/g/ (technology board) which people post builds all the time and people critique them, but watch out for trolls, it is 4chan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YO303 Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 I just fixed my mom's windows 7 PC. Had a malware called Wins 7 security 2012 .. turns out you get it by updating a fake Adove updater going around. Fucks PCs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GatorGreen Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 I'm going to agree with everyone who has suggested building your own. It's relatively easy, and you get much better warranties. If one part fails, you just send back that specific part, not the whole system. you can build an amazing PC for under $700. Easily. check out http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc it is a good resource I think and you can usually post builds there I think and get feedback. Or check out 4chan.org/g/ (technology board) which people post builds all the time and people critique them, but watch out for trolls, it is 4chan. Yeah, /g/ can actually be quite helpful when they're not telling you to install Gentoo. Reddit is a safer bet, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.