Which is better for gaming?

[Hubzee]

Just a quick question, out of the two machines, which would perform better for gaming overall.

The two I am comparing are an Acer laptop and an older desktop (which a graphics card hypothetically). I want to compare them to see if it is worth spending the money on the older machine.

Acer laptop:
CPU: Intel i5-3317U @ 1.7GHz
RAM: 6GB DDR3
GPU: Intel HD 4000

Older Machine:
MOBO: MSI-6743
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 @ 3.4GHz
GPU: Sapphire Radeon R7 250 Boost 2GB
RAM: 4GB DDR (just DDR not 2 or three)

Also just to confirm, Is Pentium 4 is quad core, dual or single core?

Thanks.

 

[LucoTF]

The laptop by a mile

 

[Hubzee]

The laptop by a mile

even with the vastly better GPU on the older machine?

 

[Shahariar Veyron]

Your "Older Machine" is much more better than the laptop for gaming

 

[emdea22]

The Pentium 4 was the worst CPU intel ever made. It was so bad they had to revert back to pentium 3 architecture to build the newer Core CPUs that came after pentium 4

 

[Hubzee]

I'm getting some conflicting answers here, but would i be right in thinking then that the CPU would bottleneck the GPU on the older machine?

 

[smorizio]

it one those old apple to orange questions. the laptop is newer but has two draw backs. one most laptops are not made for gaming. if you game a lot on a stock laptop without a cooling pad you can fry the laptop. also on the laptop there no way to change the gpu most laptops in your price range are fixed unit.
the desktop is an older unit. trick is how old is it and can you reuse any of the drives and gpu.
if the unit has sata drives. you could pick up g3258 and z97mb combo for 99.00 from micro center. there been 8g dimms on sale for 60.00. a newer evga 600w power supply most times is 30.00 new before rebates. micro center has the h22 case for 37.00. with the z97 mb you could when you had the money drop in an i5. then put in a better gpu latter on.

 

[Hubzee]

it one those old apple to orange questions. the laptop is newer but has two draw backs. one most laptops are not made for gaming. if you game a lot on a stock laptop without a cooling pad you can fry the laptop. also on the laptop there no way to change the gpu most laptops in your price range are fixed unit.
the desktop is an older unit. trick is how old is it and can you reuse any of the drives and gpu.
if the unit has sata drives. you could pick up g3258 and z97mb combo for 99.00 from micro center. there been 8g dimms on sale for 60.00. a newer evga 600w power supply most times is 30.00 new before rebates. micro center has the h22 case for 37.00. with the z97 mb you could when you had the money drop in an i5. then put in a better gpu latter on.

Thanks for the reply however there are a couple of things:

1. I am not really on a budget as I have just sold a whole bunch of stuff
2. The plan was to upgrade the crappy old machine to make it more capable until I could build a proper gaming machine when skylake comes out
3. To get the new GPU in the old machine I would automatically buy a new 750-800w PSU for later use in the new build
4. I would initially use the R7 in the new build so i could save more money for a Geforce card
5. The current drive in the old machine is OK
6. I live in Australia, so everything costs a fortune here 😉

 

[LucoTF]

A couple of years back I got the chance to try a P4 3.4ghz with some more recent titles and it was predictably poor. It won't hold 30fps on any 3d title made after 2008

At least with HD graphics 4000 you have a chance at playing something on 720p / low

 

[Hubzee]

A couple of years back I got the chance to try a P4 3.4ghz with some more recent titles and it was predictably poor. It won't hold 30fps on any 3d title made after 2008

At least with HD graphics 4000 you have a chance at playing something on 720p / low

I understand that the P4 won't be any good for gaming (96mb onboard graphics), but I'm asking if it will be any good with the new GPU in, or will it bottleneck the living shit out of it? I'm sorry for the many replies, it's just i need a clear answer before I do / dont drop 100 bucks on a GPU.

 

[LucoTF]

Yes it would bottleneck the living shit out of it. I was using a HD 5670 ddr5 which is some 40% slower than your r7 250 and it still bottlenecked to all hell and back

From memory, batman arkham asylum ran at 15-25fps with that cpu / gpu combo
I swapped the same gpu into a core 2 duo machine and the fps went up to like 55-60, 45fps minimum