I'm a noob, so if this is in the wrong spot, please accept my apologies and point me in the direction of the appropriate forum. My 10 year old son wanted a laptop for Christmas 2014, but being a DIY dad, I bought him a budget bundle from TD, and coached him through building it himself. The intent was for him to get comfortable working with hardware, and also for us both to learn how upgrading hardware impacts real-world performance in the things we use our computers for... and hopefully record the results and turn it into a fun project worthy of the school science fair.
Current components are A6-5400K on Gigabyte F2A88XM-DS2 board, Adata 4 GB DDR3 1600, 1 tb WD Blue HDD in an Ultra budget case (with some red LED case fans, DVD drive, etc). Clearly a low-end machine.
He's pretty into Minecraft, and one his pet peeves is how slow both my laptop and mom's HP touch-screen all-in-one (older i5) can render large TNT explosions. For his "bench-marking" purposes, he has chosen to build a 20 X 20 X 20 cube of TNT in Minecraft (10 x 10 x 10 brings the HP to it's knees) back it up, then measure and record the time it takes to render all 8000 explosions. We plan to run it with each hardware configuration three times to normalize the results, then compile the data into a format that is easy to communicate to other 10 year old kids.
So I have rambled extensively with the background, now for the questions, as it's up to me to figure out what budget-friendly upgrades will deliver the most bang for the buck to keep this interesting. Here's what I am thinking, and I'd appreciate any feedback:
Phase 1: Purchase dual channel 8 gb (2X4) kit of 2133 mhz DDR3. Run test with 4 gb single channel 1600 mhz, 4gb in single channel 2133 mhz, and 8 gb dual channel 2133 mhz. Based on my research, these configs should progressively show noticeable improvements, even with the A6-5400K APU.
Phase 2: Purchase quad core APU (probably A8-7600 or 7650K). Re-run tests with all three RAM configs. Should see overall performance improvement with quad core and R7 graphics, and progressive improvements with RAM upgrades.
When all is said and done, I'm thinking this will be a good experience for him, and quite frankly an AMD A8 Kaveri system with 8 GB of 2133 RAM ought to be an adequate system for him for quite some time. (Plus I'll have a bunch of parts laying around to build a budget HTPC.) The build was about $200 (obviously not including OS, monitor, and peripherals... sunk cost no matter what), and I can get the upgrades for about $150 at current prices. What are your thoughts? Is there a better way to go with $150 for this purpose, and keep a 10 year old interested?
Current components are A6-5400K on Gigabyte F2A88XM-DS2 board, Adata 4 GB DDR3 1600, 1 tb WD Blue HDD in an Ultra budget case (with some red LED case fans, DVD drive, etc). Clearly a low-end machine.
He's pretty into Minecraft, and one his pet peeves is how slow both my laptop and mom's HP touch-screen all-in-one (older i5) can render large TNT explosions. For his "bench-marking" purposes, he has chosen to build a 20 X 20 X 20 cube of TNT in Minecraft (10 x 10 x 10 brings the HP to it's knees) back it up, then measure and record the time it takes to render all 8000 explosions. We plan to run it with each hardware configuration three times to normalize the results, then compile the data into a format that is easy to communicate to other 10 year old kids.
So I have rambled extensively with the background, now for the questions, as it's up to me to figure out what budget-friendly upgrades will deliver the most bang for the buck to keep this interesting. Here's what I am thinking, and I'd appreciate any feedback:
Phase 1: Purchase dual channel 8 gb (2X4) kit of 2133 mhz DDR3. Run test with 4 gb single channel 1600 mhz, 4gb in single channel 2133 mhz, and 8 gb dual channel 2133 mhz. Based on my research, these configs should progressively show noticeable improvements, even with the A6-5400K APU.
Phase 2: Purchase quad core APU (probably A8-7600 or 7650K). Re-run tests with all three RAM configs. Should see overall performance improvement with quad core and R7 graphics, and progressive improvements with RAM upgrades.
When all is said and done, I'm thinking this will be a good experience for him, and quite frankly an AMD A8 Kaveri system with 8 GB of 2133 RAM ought to be an adequate system for him for quite some time. (Plus I'll have a bunch of parts laying around to build a budget HTPC.) The build was about $200 (obviously not including OS, monitor, and peripherals... sunk cost no matter what), and I can get the upgrades for about $150 at current prices. What are your thoughts? Is there a better way to go with $150 for this purpose, and keep a 10 year old interested?
I don't see that very often. Good job.
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