CPU recommendation please

[MSke]

Hi All,

I am in the need of new desktop, I currently have a HP Slimline with 1.8GHz cpu that just doesn't cut it anymore. We use the computer for mainly internet surfing, viewing You Tube, using Office suite of softwares, Print Shop and rarely AutoCad v14. I've done everything I could think of and find on-line in terms of trying to get this thing cleaned and faster but it hasn't made a difference. Right now surfing the internet is ridiculous slow compared to our laptops. We have middle speed FIOS offered (forget exactly what) so it's not that when I open Task Manager to review performance it's almost always running at 100% so feel it's time for a new desktop. Any and all recommendations is greatly welcomed.

 

[tomkis90]

It really depends on your budget.
A Intel® Pentium® 3258 will do a good job at surfing the internet and doing general tasks and its pretty cheap, but its not that great for multitasking.
If you have a bit more money to spend consider getting i3 - 4330 or even i5 - 4460 if you want for the cpu to last long.
Any of these will be just great with any H97 or Z97 motherboard.
At the end it all comes down to your budget.

 

[Mouldread]

Hello,

to be fair I don't think the problem is in your CPU. to me it sounds more like your RAM is on the low side (maybe 2-3 GB?) and you have way too many resident programs (those that run in the background) to be that slow even in Internet browsing. Also there is a chance your Hard Drive is probably full/almost full.

Get CCleaner https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download/standard and run it to get rid of the unneeded temp files you might have accumulated and also click on the Tools tab in CCleaner and select Startup. From there you can disable all unnecessary programs that could be eating up your resources - of course you will have to decide which ones are vital for you and which ones could be disabled. They are not being uninstalled, this is just stopping them from running in the background and you can always re-enable them if you need.

I also presume you have some antivirus program installed so not going to touch on this one but just want to mention that some of them have their options setup by default to have a ridiculously resource-heavy resident shield that can also exhaust your PC. I personally use AVG free and could highly recommend it as a very light and non-intrusive program. That's for the software part.

Now down to the hardware - I think it's worth checking your temperatures - you can download HWinfo http://www.hwinfo.com/download.php (32 or 64 bit depending on your OS) and then run it with a tick on "Sensors only". If you feel like you can upload a screenshot of the program running and post it here so we can take a look.

Try this and see how it works out for you.