CPU for non gaming PC

[johnnyh55]

So I am looking to replace an 8 year old gateway PC with an AMD Athlon X2 and I don't know if a Core I3-4170 should be enough or should I go with a core i5-4460? Or, is haswell long gone and I should get a skylake Core i5? I would like the system to last me a good 5+ years and I mainly use the system for Excel,Word, lots of youtube videos and facebook flash games and I also use google earth and google street view a lot. I also use it to store photos and videos from my point and shoot camera. I also do intense web browsing with 10+ tabs open at the same time, I don't know if this would be more of a ram concern than the cpu.

I would like to know what would be my best bet, I would hate to buy something and realize it's not enough for my needs. I probably will only use the onboard graphics, unless adding a video card will speed up the system tremendously.

 

[4745454b]

You used a non top of the line CPU for EIGHT years. An I3 or AMD FX 4xxx should be more then enough for you. You don't seem to need anything really powerful so stay with the I3s and lower AMD chips. You'll be fine.

 

[Jonathan Cave]

Hi Johnny

Are you looking for a complete build or just the CPU recommendation ?

 

[johnnyh55]

I'll be doing a complete build but I was lost when choosing the cpu. Would an i3 Haswell be ok or should I spend more and get a skylake i3?

 

[4745454b]

Whichever is cheaper. Skylake performs the same as Haswell, but the boards cost a bit more and DDR4 costs more then DDR3. In this case buying Haswell is fine.

 

[johnnyh55]

And would I see any speed improvements by adding a dedicated video card or not in this case?

 

[4745454b]

What are you using right now for video? Any issues with your flash games?

 

[Jonathan Cave]

Skylake is faster than Haswell ~5-10%

If your needs are solely intense web browsing and office applications this CPU will be ideal : Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz. It comes with HD Graphics so no need for a standalone GPU.

Ram is Cheap and 8GB is more than enough for what you need. I dare say that 4GB would be ok.

An SSD is where you will see the real beenfits such as a 250GB Crucial BX100 or Samsung 850 EVO.

Below is an example build :

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor (£50.00 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97P-D3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£61.79 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Patriot Signature 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£29.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£62.90 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: EVGA 430W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply (£28.79 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £233.47
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-03 14:30 GMT+0000

Add your old DVD/RW drive if it is SATA from your old PC. Add in extra HDD space for videos / photo's if required - You can use your old HDD if it is sata. Add your own case - as its personal preference.

 

[Quixit]

If you don't play games you don't need a dedicated video card. Intel's integrated graphics are good enough even for light games now.

 

[Wisecracker]

An AMD APU, 8GB of RAMs with an SSD will work just dandy --- you have no need for a video card.

 

[johnnyh55]

Skylake is faster than Haswell ~5-10%

If your needs are solely intense web browsing and office applications this CPU will be ideal : Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz. It comes with HD Graphics so no need for a standalone GPU.

Ram is Cheap and 8GB is more than enough for what you need. I dare say that 4GB would be ok.

An SSD is where you will see the real beenfits such as a 250GB Crucial BX100 or Samsung 850 EVO.

Below is an example build :

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor (£50.00 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97P-D3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£61.79 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Patriot Signature 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£29.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£62.90 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: EVGA 430W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply (£28.79 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £233.47
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-03 14:30 GMT+0000

Add your old DVD/RW drive if it is SATA from your old PC. Add in extra HDD space for videos / photo's if required - You can use your old HDD if it is sata. Add your own case - as its personal preference.

Ok, so you wouldn't even go for a core i3? The Pentium G3258 should be good? I don't know why but I am afraid to run out of "power" further in the future.

 

[jaguarskx]

Ok, so you wouldn't even go for a core i3? The Pentium G3258 should be good? I don't know why but I am afraid to run out of "power" further in the future.

It could be depending on what your expectations are.

Exactly what has prompted you to upgrade from your 8 year PC? Was it just chugging along and you finally had enough of it?


You can get by on a dual core CPU like the Pentium, but I generally recommend getting a Core i3 Haswell generation CPU like the i3-4170 which is a dual core CPU and has hyper threading which lets it processes up to 4 different "threads" of instructions rather than just 2 "threads". It is not the same as a quad core CPU though. It also has a more powerful integrated graphics core than the Pentium which can come in handy for things that are a bit more graphically intensive.

Alternatively, you can look at AMD's APUs. "APU" is AMD's term for CPUs with integrated graphic cores. Intel just calls them CPUs. Something like the quad core A8-7600 APU should be fine for you basic needs. Intel CPUs have more processing power, but weaker integrated graphics performance compared to AMD. But in your case you probably will not be able to tell the difference. Either way a Core i3-4170 and the A8-7600 will both be more powerful than your current PC.

 

[Jonathan Cave]

Skylake is faster than Haswell ~5-10%

If your needs are solely intense web browsing and office applications this CPU will be ideal : Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz. It comes with HD Graphics so no need for a standalone GPU.

Ram is Cheap and 8GB is more than enough for what you need. I dare say that 4GB would be ok.

An SSD is where you will see the real beenfits such as a 250GB Crucial BX100 or Samsung 850 EVO.

Below is an example build :

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor (£50.00 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97P-D3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£61.79 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Patriot Signature 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£29.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£62.90 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: EVGA 430W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply (£28.79 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £233.47
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-03 14:30 GMT+0000

Add your old DVD/RW drive if it is SATA from your old PC. Add in extra HDD space for videos / photo's if required - You can use your old HDD if it is sata. Add your own case - as its personal preference.

Ok, so you wouldn't even go for a core i3? The Pentium G3258 should be good? I don't know why but I am afraid to run out of "power" further in the future.

No i wouldn't recommend the i3 because the only difference is the hyper-threading.

Predominantly hyper-threading is used when software allows it e.g. Video editing/rendering and 3d modelling etc... and in rare circumstances gaming. For heavy web browsing and using office etc you won't use hyperthreading.

I don't know if you would need HT ever in the future - unless you think you will start editing etc.. ?

 

[johnnyh55]

So for heavy web browsing, should I be looking at getting lots of ram? Ram would have more of an impact than CPU? The reason I am looking to upgrade is because my 8 year old system died on the weekend and it wasn't exactly a rocket since I upgraded to Windows 8.1.

 

[Jonathan Cave]

Yes i'd recommend 8GB of ram:

Here is my system running 10 Youtube Tabs (Google Chrome) Plus anti virus, drop box, and multiple other programs such as steam nvidia control pannel, samsung magician etc.. etc.....

- Ignore the 1.5GB Cached - this is for RAPID mode for Samsung magician.

As you can see it has used 4.7GB for all applications - if you had say 4GB of ram, you would run out of ram and your HDD would start 'caching' data which is much slower.

You can overclock this CPU very easily with a £30 aftermarket fan.

Watch this review: - Although it is comparing gaming performance, this will give you an idea of how well this £50 CPU can perform against a £809 i7 5960x

[video="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJACZ5iStWw"][/video]

If you wanted to look at an AMD build which has 6 cores :

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor (£78.77 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 Micro ATX AM3+ Motherboard (£39.84 @ Aria PC)
Memory: Patriot Signature 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£29.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£62.32 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: EVGA 430W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply (£28.79 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £239.71
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-04 16:07 GMT+0000

Hope this helps and is making sense ?

 

[mjslakeridge]

Are you sticking with Windows 8.1? Is it 64 bit version? You probably already know this, but to use more than 4GB of Ram as others have suggested you will need 64 bit, not 32 bit version of Windows.

 

[johnnyh55]

Are you sticking with Windows 8.1? Is it 64 bit version? You probably already know this, but to use more than 4GB of Ram as others have suggested you will need 64 bit, not 32 bit version of Windows.

Ya I currently am and will be using 64 bit version of windows.