CPU for a basic computer

[Denis54]

My daughter has an old C2D computer that is pretty slow and she wants me to build her a new one. She has very basic needs: Mail, Internet, YouTube, Facebook and lots of Word documents. No games.

She does not want to spend needlessly but budget is flexible. She has a good PSU so I do not need to replace it. Which components should I get?

GPU: I do not plan to get one as I think a CPU with an integrated GPU will be sufficient. Am I right?

CPU: Would an Haswell i3 be a good choice?

Motherboard: Can you recommend a motherboard also?

Memory: Should I get 4 GB or 8 GB?

 

[janeuner]

Straight from the Hot Deals Section:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...=Combo.1929161

The cost effectiveness of Core i3 just isn't there. The G3258 is 90% of an i3 at half the cost.

Get a 4GB stick of DDR3-1333 (or faster) off ebay. Easy to add another 4GB if she isn't satisfied.

 

[Denis54]

How about GPU performance? From what I understand, an i3 has a much better on board GPU. Am I right?

Should I rather get a G3258 and a separate video card?

 

[Cerb]

Yes, but it won't make much difference, for such usage. If making Powerpoint presentations, or photo editing, or something, is added in, maybe then an i3 or A8 would be good.

Get the Pentium, 2x4GB RAM (4GB may do, but it's cheap to get another 4GB), and an SSD. Or, an A8-7600, or an i3-4150. All depends on how much you want to spend. But, for the money, the Pentium is good. Not a big step up from a Core 2, but that's where the new IGP, RAM, USB 3.0, and SSD come in .

If you're not buying too far out, the $95 Newegg deal today for an M500 240GB is pretty strong, IMO.

 

[Denis54]

Is the onboard GPU of the Pentium powerful enough to handle anything she might find on YouTube?

 

[Cerb]

Is the onboard GPU of the Pentium powerful enough to handle anything she might find on YouTube?

Yes. It has dedicated hardware for video processing, and that is supported by Flash, VLC, LAV, WMP, etc..

Plus, the CPU is strong enough decode any 1080P content you may find, so formats like Webm that may not be offloadable will still play fine, just use up some CPU to do so (Intel may have Webm supported in IGP, by now, too, I really don't know).

P.S. That linked Pentium deal is good, but the board doesn't have front USB 3.0s. That normally needs a B85 or H97 board. USB 3.0 HDDs are both spoiling, and annoying on USB 2.0 (1 USB 3.0 port can provide enough power, but the same cable plugged in USB 2.0 may not).

 

[Deders]

There is no way she'll use more than 4GB of ram, Unless there is something very wrong.

 

[Yuriman]

Might I suggest a SFF PC? You might be able to get away with giving her a NUC, or at least a mATX or mITX board + case.

 

[cbn]

P.S. That linked Pentium deal is good, but the board doesn't have front USB 3.0s. That normally needs a B85 or H97 board. USB 3.0 HDDs are both spoiling, and annoying on USB 2.0 (1 USB 3.0 port can provide enough power, but the same cable plugged in USB 2.0 may not).

Here is another G3258 combo deal with a ECS mATX Z97 (which has the front usb 3.0)--> http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2404482

 

[Eeqmcsq]

Don't forget an SSD. For basic usage, nearly any CPU and GPU is good enough. But an SSD will add a level of snappiness that makes the PC feel really fast.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

You might want to approach this incrementally.

Does the C2D system have PCI-E 2.0 slots? If so, you could probably get a $50 SATA-III controller and spend some money on a good SSD.

If your daughter is surprised at the improved performance, maybe she'll actually be happy with it. If not, you go with a good G3258 combo deal, cable the SSD to the motherboard (perhaps reinstall the OS), and you have the controller as a "leftover".

 

[VirtualLarry]

You might want to approach this incrementally.

Does the C2D system have PCI-E 2.0 slots? If so, you could probably get a $50 SATA-III controller and spend some money on a good SSD.

Wouldn't need to spend even that much. I've seen two-port SATA6G PCI-E 2.0 x1 controller cards at Newegg for less than $20.

 

[Cerb]

If the board supports AHCI, there wouldn't even be a need for a card. 3Gbps will be fine, with NCQ.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I wonder how a 2.5Ghz C2D mini-ITX with an Intel X25-V (Kingston rebranded) would fare. Perhaps compared to a G3258 ATX / mATX rig.

 

[teejee]

C2D are still quite OK, better than a new budget PC with baytrail.
A clean install of W7 or W8.1 migh be enough for a while. It did wonder with my girlfriends C2D laptop.

 

[BHZ-GTR]

Hi

Iam Suggest To You Rig: CPU> AMD APU A4-5300 + IGPU 7480D

Mainboard> MSI A55-E33
RAM> Kingston Value 1 GB One Module Freq=1600 MHZ
PSU> Corsiar Vs450
HDD> Seagate Barracuda 500 GB Interface SATA III
ODD> ASUS 24X

 

[mikeymikec]

How many years would you like to get out of this computer (either the current one after upgrades or a new platform)? How reliable has it been so far?

IMO the cheaper processors (low end AMDs, the Pentium G3258) are a bad idea for the average user, but then I expect to get 8-10 years (maybe more depending on the budget) out of a desktop PC build, that's what I aim for. Some people here might be projecting based on their habits of upgrading every say 2-4 years. Your daughter might be fast approaching an age where she'll be paying for her next computer, at which point you might not consider it to be your problem any more, perhaps that's irrelevant.

 

[Smoblikat]

Ever think of just putting an SSD in her current rig?? It seems her needs would be pretty much met by that.

 

[schmuckley]

How about GPU performance? From what I understand, an i3 has a much better on board GPU. Am I right?

Should I rather get a G3258 and a separate video card?

Yes!
$100 or less GPU

something like this..

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814161418

I hope that PSU is as good as you say it is.

You can find list of cheap boards for the Pentium here:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2389948

 

[sandy777]

My daughter has an old C2D computer that is pretty slow and she wants me to build her a new one. She has very basic needs: Mail, Internet, YouTube, Facebook and lots of Word documents. No games.

She does not want to spend needlessly but budget is flexible. She has a good PSU so I do not need to replace it. Which components should I get?

GPU: I do not plan to get one as I think a CPU with an integrated GPU will be sufficient. Am I right?

CPU: Would an Haswell i3 be a good choice?

Motherboard: Can you recommend a motherboard also?

Memory: Should I get 4 GB or 8 GB?

What C2D do you currently have?

If she has very basic needs, the C2D maybe sufficient with just a couple upgrades. The big one (as others have mentioned) is to stick an SSD drive in it (should improve performance dramatically). Get it up to at least 4GB in RAM and Install a fresh copy of Windows and you'll be surprised how well it performs. I know because I did the exact same thing.

 

[Yuriman]

Yes!
$100 or less GPU

something like this..

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814161418

I hope that PSU is as good as you say it is.

You can find list of cheap boards for the Pentium here:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2389948

A discrete GPU will make zero difference since she's not playing complex 3d games.

 

[Bman123]

Go with the Pentium cpu and a ssd, it will be a huge difference. I use a celeron g530 cpu with a 128gb ssd and I have no issues with that desktop at all, it feels plenty fast for basic Web browsing and YouTube videos

 

[mikeymikec]

A discrete GPU will make zero difference since she's not playing complex 3d games.

I wonder. Despite the boards I used in the days of the Athlon II having 128MB dedicated on-board video RAM for their HD 4290, the WinSAT score would drop from 7.x to 5.9 if the graphics also used system RAM. If I set the board to SidePort only (as opposed to the default 'UMA + SidePort'), the RAM score went back up again.

In the days of the C2D I doubt there would have been any dedicated board memory purely for integrated graphics, so it would have had to use system RAM, and integrated graphics RAM requests would use some of the memory access time.

The other thing I'd check is what video decoding capabilities the integrated graphics has and compare that to a cheap yet up-to-date graphics card. If the CPU is having to do the legwork on say a HD video, the usage is going to be significant. The integrated graphics could be some super-crappy SiS chip.

- edit - I missed the context of what was being responded to - I would trust the onboard graphics of any Sandy/Ivy/Haswell chip to do the basic stuff, though if the budget allows and the build is intended to last as long as possible, I'd go for the Core i3-4330 as its onboard graphics is a bit better than the lower-end i3s and other lower Intel CPUs.

 

[ArisVer]

One more vote for an SSD. Since you are probably goona get it anyway, get it first, install it on your current computer and see the difference.

I suggest you post your system specs. Maybe with a couple of upgrades you are going to have a usable computer. RAM is cheap to upgrade too.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

If the board supports AHCI, there wouldn't even be a need for a card. 3Gbps will be fine, with NCQ.

Except that a current-gen SSD upgrade would be crippled to half its potential. It wouldn't matter for an HDD -- not much.