I see tons of gaming build advice, but can't find any business build advice. Hoping for some insight here.
Thanks in advance for your advice.
See Back Story below, but here are the recommended "New Build" questions answered first.
Approximate Purchase Date: This week
Budget Range: n/a (I already have some components)
System Usage from Most to Least Important: Heavy Business Use (Cloud, Browser, Photoshop)
Are you buying a monitor: No -- already have two Samsung 24" 1920x1080
Parts to Upgrade: New Build, see below
Do you need to buy OS: Yes, Win10
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Amazon, Newegg, Fry's (local store)
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Parts Preferences: Intel
Overclocking: No
SLI or Crossfire: No idea what this means (See "business use", above)
Your Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080
Additional Comments: See below
And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: I currently have a 6-7 year old Dell Precision 4600 that has performed great all this time. i7-2720qm, 2.2ghz, 4 cores, hyperthreading, 16gb RAM, Win7sp1. It has an SSD boot drive and hybrid data drives. Works great. Still fast...but lags a little when I have all my 20-30 browser windows open. I want faster.
WHAT I ALREADY OWN
Mobo: Gigabyte B360 HD3
GPU: GT 1030 (My son's old one, optional, but got it cheap)
Fan/Cooler: CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Evo
PS: EVGA 500BQ Bronze
Boot Drive: Silicon Power NVME 256mb
Data Drives: Probably Samsung SSD
Case: NZXT H500
Also,I have a fast internet connection: 20mb up + 250mb down
BACKSTORY
I'm a web developer and this is a BUSINESS build. I don't play games. 90% of my work is in Google Docs or Wordpress. But I have lots of local files (photos, etc), that we store locally for Google drive or Dropbox, editing and uploading. Occasional video editing. I have 16gb of RAM on my current laptop, and I regularly max out on that and have to shut down processes.
I bought a brand new-in-box Gigabyte B360 HD3 motherboard from a friend that I am building on. My gaming son says I won’t notice a performance difference of more than 5% between an i5-8400 and an i7-8700. True? (As you know, the chipset on this board does not support overclocking so I can’t get the 8700k).
Similarly my son says that I won’t notice a difference of more than a few percent between 2400mhz and 3000mhz RAM. (I plan on buying a minimum of 16gb, but will bump to 32gb if I max out my RAM on the new build. (If I got the cheaper CPU and RAM would allow me to buy 32gb from the start).
I watched some benchmark videos about both of these topics that support what my son is saying but my gut tells me that the better CPU and faster RAM would result in a noticeably faster machine. The question is would it really be noticeable?
I know that the i5 has 6 cores at 2.8mhz (plus turbo), but the i7 has 6 cores plus hyperthreading, which means 12 cores at 3.2mhz (plus turbo). Will that help with all the processes I'll have running with all my browser windows open?
However, one of the videos I watched said that in some cases the i7 actually performed slower when overworked because it got too hot without a massive cooler and automatically reduced its own speed below the 8400's speed every 7 seconds or so. And some documentation I read said that the maximum “official” JEDEC recommended memory speed for an i5-8400 is 2666 MHz.
While I am not a gamer I do tend to have 20-30 (or more!) Chrome browser windows open at once, and run Photoshop Elements (simple photo editing) and an occasional video render (Camtasia, Pinnacle). I want the machine to be immediately responsive all the time (current laptop is not quite as responsive as I'd like with all the browser windows open or when video rendering).
So my questions are, given the board I am buying, which CPU and Ram would you recommend?
i5-8400 and 2400mhz: With 16gb about $280, 32gb about $370
i7-8700 and 3000mhz? With 16gb about $440, 32gb about $550
Or some other combo?
If you were in my situation, where would you spend YOUR money?
Thank you.
-Mark
Thanks in advance for your advice.
See Back Story below, but here are the recommended "New Build" questions answered first.
Approximate Purchase Date: This week
Budget Range: n/a (I already have some components)
System Usage from Most to Least Important: Heavy Business Use (Cloud, Browser, Photoshop)
Are you buying a monitor: No -- already have two Samsung 24" 1920x1080
Parts to Upgrade: New Build, see below
Do you need to buy OS: Yes, Win10
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Amazon, Newegg, Fry's (local store)
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Parts Preferences: Intel
Overclocking: No
SLI or Crossfire: No idea what this means (See "business use", above)
Your Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080
Additional Comments: See below
And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: I currently have a 6-7 year old Dell Precision 4600 that has performed great all this time. i7-2720qm, 2.2ghz, 4 cores, hyperthreading, 16gb RAM, Win7sp1. It has an SSD boot drive and hybrid data drives. Works great. Still fast...but lags a little when I have all my 20-30 browser windows open. I want faster.
WHAT I ALREADY OWN
Mobo: Gigabyte B360 HD3
GPU: GT 1030 (My son's old one, optional, but got it cheap)
Fan/Cooler: CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Evo
PS: EVGA 500BQ Bronze
Boot Drive: Silicon Power NVME 256mb
Data Drives: Probably Samsung SSD
Case: NZXT H500
Also,I have a fast internet connection: 20mb up + 250mb down
BACKSTORY
I'm a web developer and this is a BUSINESS build. I don't play games. 90% of my work is in Google Docs or Wordpress. But I have lots of local files (photos, etc), that we store locally for Google drive or Dropbox, editing and uploading. Occasional video editing. I have 16gb of RAM on my current laptop, and I regularly max out on that and have to shut down processes.
I bought a brand new-in-box Gigabyte B360 HD3 motherboard from a friend that I am building on. My gaming son says I won’t notice a performance difference of more than 5% between an i5-8400 and an i7-8700. True? (As you know, the chipset on this board does not support overclocking so I can’t get the 8700k).
Similarly my son says that I won’t notice a difference of more than a few percent between 2400mhz and 3000mhz RAM. (I plan on buying a minimum of 16gb, but will bump to 32gb if I max out my RAM on the new build. (If I got the cheaper CPU and RAM would allow me to buy 32gb from the start).
I watched some benchmark videos about both of these topics that support what my son is saying but my gut tells me that the better CPU and faster RAM would result in a noticeably faster machine. The question is would it really be noticeable?
I know that the i5 has 6 cores at 2.8mhz (plus turbo), but the i7 has 6 cores plus hyperthreading, which means 12 cores at 3.2mhz (plus turbo). Will that help with all the processes I'll have running with all my browser windows open?
However, one of the videos I watched said that in some cases the i7 actually performed slower when overworked because it got too hot without a massive cooler and automatically reduced its own speed below the 8400's speed every 7 seconds or so. And some documentation I read said that the maximum “official” JEDEC recommended memory speed for an i5-8400 is 2666 MHz.
While I am not a gamer I do tend to have 20-30 (or more!) Chrome browser windows open at once, and run Photoshop Elements (simple photo editing) and an occasional video render (Camtasia, Pinnacle). I want the machine to be immediately responsive all the time (current laptop is not quite as responsive as I'd like with all the browser windows open or when video rendering).
So my questions are, given the board I am buying, which CPU and Ram would you recommend?
i5-8400 and 2400mhz: With 16gb about $280, 32gb about $370
i7-8700 and 3000mhz? With 16gb about $440, 32gb about $550
Or some other combo?
If you were in my situation, where would you spend YOUR money?
Thank you.
-Mark
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