[SOLVED] Advice of improving current PC spec or replace PC?

[Auraorange]

Hi

I have a PC which is about 4 years old, I am not a gamer and use it mainly for office documents, ripping DVD's and CD's for our tablet PC's and storing large quantities of media such as family photos and videos. So my demands are not high but I want the PC to be nice and quick generally

I ran a scoring script in powershell to see how my PC bears up and here are the results:

CPUScore : 8.5
D3DScore : 9.9
DiskScore : 7.25
GraphicsScore : 5.2
MemoryScore : 8.5
TimeTaken : MostRecentAssessment
WinSATAssessmentState : 1
WinSPRLevel : 5.2
PSComputerName : DESKTOP-G7TK39R

I have an i3 processor, SSD hard drive, 8gb ram, a Gigabyte Tech H61M-S2PV X.X Motherboard, NVIDIA GeForce GT 710 Graphics Card

Looks like easiest way to improve is update the graphics card but no idea what to without spending a fortune?

Any advice will be very much appreciated, thank you in advance.

 

[Bob.B]

Hi

I have a PC which is about 4 years old, I am not a gamer and use it mainly for office documents, ripping DVD's and CD's for our tablet PC's and storing large quantities of media such as family photos and videos. So my demands are not high but I want the PC to be nice and quick generally

I ran a scoring script in powershell to see how my PC bears up and here are the results:

CPUScore : 8.5
D3DScore : 9.9
DiskScore : 7.25
GraphicsScore : 5.2
MemoryScore : 8.5
TimeTaken : MostRecentAssessment
WinSATAssessmentState : 1
WinSPRLevel : 5.2
PSComputerName : DESKTOP-G7TK39R

I have an i3 processor, SSD hard drive, 8gb ram, a Gigabyte Tech H61M-S2PV X.X Motherboard, NVIDIA GeForce GT 710 Graphics Card

Looks like easiest way to improve is update the graphics card but no idea what to without spending a fortune?

Any advice will be very much appreciated, thank you in advance.

Getting a pc to run at it's best with the parts you have is often a matter of picking around the edges.
Bios/drivers/stopping unneeded background stuff.
Run this and post a link to the results page.
PC Benchmark

 

[Auraorange]

Thanks Bob is this what you need?

UserBenchmarks: Game 7%, Desk 64%, Work 7%
CPU: Intel Core i3-3220 - 65.7%
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GT 710 - 3.3%
SSD: Crucial MX500 500GB - 57.4%
HDD: Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB - 55.8%
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 1TB - 88.4%
USB: WD My Passport 07A8 1TB - 16.9%
RAM: Unknown CT51264BD160B.C16F 04CB 10242398 8GB - 48.1%
MBD: Novatech BB-32204B

 

[Cubrix]

Hi,

Looking at your specs your PC should actually not struggle that much with normal non-gaming software like you mentioned. Do you have a single 8gb ram chip or do you have 2 x 4 gb chips?

Are you running Windows 10?

When was the last time you did a clean install on your PC?

How long have you been using the SSD?

Also state what you consider a 'fortune', so we can get what your budget is.

 

[Auraorange]

Hi Cubix,

My PC has 2 * 4GB of RAM

It does have Windows 10 which was free due to previous Windows 7 install, you have a good point here I need to research how to reinstall Windows 10

I have had my SSD for about 1 year

I guess if a graphics card was over £150, then the current SSD is 500gb and could do with that being 1tb and use the current one as backup, trying to work out what's best.

Sorry rambling trying to work out whats best

 

[Bob.B]

Thanks Bob is this what you need?

UserBenchmarks: Game 7%, Desk 64%, Work 7%
CPU: Intel Core i3-3220 - 65.7%
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GT 710 - 3.3%
SSD: Crucial MX500 500GB - 57.4%
HDD: Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB - 55.8%
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 1TB - 88.4%
USB: WD My Passport 07A8 1TB - 16.9%
RAM: Unknown CT51264BD160B.C16F 04CB 10242398 8GB - 48.1%
MBD: Novatech BB-32204B

No......just post a link to the results page.

 

[Cubrix]

Hi Cubix,

My PC has 2 * 4GB of RAM

It does have Windows 10 which was free due to previous Windows 7 install, you have a good point here I need to research how to reinstall Windows 10

I have had my SSD for about 1 year

I guess if a graphics card was over £150, then the current SSD is 500gb and could do with that being 1tb and use the current one as backup, trying to work out what's best.

Sorry rambling trying to work out whats best

2 Ram chips running in dual channel is always better than one, so that is a good thing.

Reinstalling windows 10 is super easy, there is a Windows command "Reset this PC" where you can reinstall a fresh Windows 10 without even having to use a USB bootable disk or so.

Your SSD should be fine if it's only a year old. You can also rather get a 1tb HDD if you want to use it for storage. When you install Windows on your SSD, the secondary HDD don't need to be a SSD to keep your performance. Your transfer speed will be slower from the SSD to the HDD than from a SSD to a SSD, but I don't think you have to bother too much.

You do have graphics drivers installed on your computer correct?

 

[hang-the-9]

Hi

I have a PC which is about 4 years old, I am not a gamer and use it mainly for office documents, ripping DVD's and CD's for our tablet PC's and storing large quantities of media such as family photos and videos. So my demands are not high but I want the PC to be nice and quick generally

I ran a scoring script in powershell to see how my PC bears up and here are the results:

CPUScore : 8.5
D3DScore : 9.9
DiskScore : 7.25
GraphicsScore : 5.2
MemoryScore : 8.5
TimeTaken : MostRecentAssessment
WinSATAssessmentState : 1
WinSPRLevel : 5.2
PSComputerName : DESKTOP-G7TK39R

I have an i3 processor, SSD hard drive, 8gb ram, a Gigabyte Tech H61M-S2PV X.X Motherboard, NVIDIA GeForce GT 710 Graphics Card

Looks like easiest way to improve is update the graphics card but no idea what to without spending a fortune?

Any advice will be very much appreciated, thank you in advance.

This scoring is just about useless, yes your video score is low, but if you are not using it for gaming then it does not matter The CPU you have is an older one and a lower range, if I was asked how it would compare to a modern mid range CPU, I would give it maybe a 4.

Best thing for you is a CPU upgrade (if you are converting movies), then a RAM upgrade. An i5 or an i7 CPU would help with conversion speeds, but may not be very noticeable in other areas.

 

[Howardohyea]

Thanks Bob is this what you need?

UserBenchmarks: Game 7%, Desk 64%, Work 7%
CPU: Intel Core i3-3220 - 65.7%
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GT 710 - 3.3%
SSD: Crucial MX500 500GB - 57.4%
HDD: Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB - 55.8%
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 1TB - 88.4%
USB: WD My Passport 07A8 1TB - 16.9%
RAM: Unknown CT51264BD160B.C16F 04CB 10242398 8GB - 48.1%
MBD: Novatech BB-32204B

I want to point out that Userbenchmark is pure garbage when it comes to benchmarking. They deliberately speed Intel stuff up and slow AMD down, not to mention a ridiculous bias towards single core workloads. If you're actually into benchmarking use 3DMark/PCMark instead.

As to the PC upgrade, I think you're better off with a full system upgrade. integrated GPUs like the new Intel UHD 730 (in the i5 11400) should be much better than the GT710, not to mention a better CPU.