What CPU and RAM to run Windows smoothly?

[cooper69]

i'm not talking about minimum requirements, but to have no (minimal?) chance of hardware slowdown on Windows and office/media applications.

reason i ask is because i've recently been building computers for friends with a very high emphasis on budget. they use them for very low-end games and browsing the internet/youtube, netflix, etc. i've been away from computers for a long time, but my "recipe" for this kind of machine always consisted of anything that isn't a pentium 4, an ssd and 4 gb of ram or more. for the past few builds i've done for friends, i've used a core 2 duo E8400 cpu. is this alright for what i intend it to be used for or should i get core 2 quads instead?

likewise, does a core 2 duo e8400 (3 ghz) perform better than a core 2 duo e7200 (2.53ghz) in windows/office apps? other than ~0.5ghz clock speed, the only thing the e8400 has over the e7200 is cache

 

[VirtualLarry]

reason i ask is because i've recently been building computers for friends with a very high emphasis on budget. they use them for very low-end games and browsing the internet/youtube, netflix, etc. i've been away from computers for a long time, but my "recipe" for this kind of machine always consisted of anything that isn't a pentium 4, an ssd and 4 gb of ram or more. for the past few builds i've done for friends, i've used a core 2 duo E8400 cpu. is this alright for what i intend it to be used for or should i get core 2 quads instead?

Would be better off with a Haswell Celeron / Pentium / G3258 (if OCed). Couple with a cheap but decent H81 mobo (that supports overclocking, if matched with the G3258).

likewise, does a core 2 duo e8400 (3 ghz) perform better than a core 2 duo e7200 (2.53ghz) in windows/office apps? other than ~0.5ghz clock speed, the only thing the e8400 has over the e7200 is cache

Yes, but not hugely. 0.5 C2D Ghz isn't all that much of a difference, these days. Granted, it IS a difference, but the difference between moving up to a Haswell Pentium is greater than the difference between two close C2D CPUs.

 

[jihe]

i'm not talking about minimum requirements, but to have no (minimal?) chance of hardware slowdown on Windows and office/media applications.

reason i ask is because i've recently been building computers for friends with a very high emphasis on budget. they use them for very low-end games and browsing the internet/youtube, netflix, etc. i've been away from computers for a long time, but my "recipe" for this kind of machine always consisted of anything that isn't a pentium 4, an ssd and 4 gb of ram or more. for the past few builds i've done for friends, i've used a core 2 duo E8400 cpu. is this alright for what i intend it to be used for or should i get core 2 quads instead?

likewise, does a core 2 duo e8400 (3 ghz) perform better than a core 2 duo e7200 (2.53ghz) in windows/office apps? other than ~0.5ghz clock speed, the only thing the e8400 has over the e7200 is cache

Even the 7200 will be fine, these days you should be able to get them for free or 99 cents.

 

[escrow4]

i3 and 8GB RAM minimum with a 256GB SSD. A Celeron will stutter with anything 1080/60FPS or even 720p online and a Pentium is little better. Core 2's are obsolete junk. A Skylake i3 which should be out this month will obliterate them.

 

[cooper69]

i3 and 8GB RAM minimum with a 256GB SSD. A Celeron will stutter with anything 1080/60FPS or even 720p online and a Pentium is little better. Core 2's are obsolete junk. A Skylake i3 which should be out this month will obliterate them.

this would all be under the assumption that they have a low end dedicated graphics card (9800GTX and 5850 to be specific). would that make a difference in what cpu i should choose?

Would be better off with a Haswell Celeron / Pentium / G3258 (if OCed). Couple with a cheap but decent H81 mobo (that supports overclocking, if matched with the G3258).

Yes, but not hugely. 0.5 C2D Ghz isn't all that much of a difference, these days. Granted, it IS a difference, but the difference between moving up to a Haswell Pentium is greater than the difference between two close C2D CPUs.

unfortunately, even the lowest end Haswell celerons are out of the budget, which is about $150 for everything including case and psu. and as someone else stated, c2d and the motherboards for them come very cheap, which is why i picked them. leaves more for a better quality psu and a decently sized ssd (which actually consume almost 2/3 of the budget themselves). although, in hindsight, maybe a slightly stretched budget and some second hand, lower end sandy bridges would have been a better choice


but the general consensus is that c2d e8400 is not the best choice for running windows and general office applications?

 

[LTC8K6]

It's almost not worth the labor when you can buy refurbs:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883282175

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883798022

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883158256

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883155788

 

[cooper69]

ah, well i guess i should stick to the newer but low-end stuff. thanks guys

 

[SPBHM]

from what I noticed here with C2D and C2Q (well, not quite, Pentium e5400 and Xeon e5420, but it works the same...) you can easily see the benefit of the extra cores on basic usage, things like windows update/defender will be less problematic, Chrome also seems better with 4 cores.

 

[escrow4]

this would all be under the assumption that they have a low end dedicated graphics card (9800GTX and 5850 to be specific). would that make a difference in what cpu i should choose?



unfortunately, even the lowest end Haswell celerons are out of the budget, which is about $150 for everything including case and psu. and as someone else stated, c2d and the motherboards for them come very cheap, which is why i picked them. leaves more for a better quality psu and a decently sized ssd (which actually consume almost 2/3 of the budget themselves). although, in hindsight, maybe a slightly stretched budget and some second hand, lower end sandy bridges would have been a better choice


but the general consensus is that c2d e8400 is not the best choice for running windows and general office applications?

Those cards should support hardware decoding, but anything Core 2 is seriously creaking along by now. I had 2 different Celerons - IVB and Haswell - and I'll never buy another one. The experience is just sluggish. They are the equivalent of an E8400 in 2015. Pentiums are little more than glorified Pentiums. An i3 will flatten any C2Q unless you find one of the top clocked Extreme models and even then it will only be slightly better multithreaded wise.

An SSD is essential too, the difference is night and day when Windows Update starts thrashing your HDD.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Those cards should support hardware decoding, but anything Core 2 is seriously creaking along by now. I had 2 different Celerons - IVB and Haswell - and I'll never buy another one. The experience is just sluggish. They are the equivalent of an E8400 in 2015. Pentiums are little more than glorified Pentiums. An i3 will flatten any C2Q unless you find one of the top clocked Extreme models and even then it will only be slightly better multithreaded wise.

An SSD is essential too, the difference is night and day when Windows Update starts thrashing your HDD.

You want sluggish? Try a MeegoPad T02, with Win10 Pro 32-bit. Now THAT's sluggish. Good old Bay Trail Atom 1.33Ghz quad-core, no "burst" speed. In fact, quite the opposite. Heavy multitasking, or continuous CPU usage (Skype, for example), will cause it to overheat and thermal-throttle downwards. After running Skype for 10-15 minutes on a video call, it runs at 0.49Ghz for me. Web browsing at the same time, will bring it down to 0.24Ghz. Under Linux, it causes a controlled restart.

 

[happy medium]

I put together a cheap socket 1150 combo from newegg.

case 29$ shipped
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811353056&ignorebbr=1

Corsair psu 26$ shipped
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139090

MSI H81 43$ shipped
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130731

Intel Pentium G3250 Haswell Dual-Core 3.2GHz 60$ shipped
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117449

G.SKILL NS 4GB (2 x 2GB) 28$ shipped
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231394

SanDisk Z400s 2.5" 128GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive 50$ shipped
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=0D9-0006-00089

That's 236$ shipped. You can double the memory (8gb) for 250$ shipped

That's much better than a outdated e8400 system and as cheap as cheap can be.

 

[RaistlinZ]

OP, your friends really need to up their budget over $150.00 if they want something decent.

 

[TeknoBug]

I installed Windows 10 on my A4 5000 (1.5GHz) with 4GB RAM laptop and i3 4010U (1.7GHz) NUC with 6GB RAM and Windows runs well on both (and both using SSD's), although when surfing on some pages on the A4 5000 it stutters for a little.

These days the 4GB RAM is the limiting factor for a lot of things, at times (such as using Office or browser with multiple tabs) you'll experience some slowdowns due to the RAM being used up since the integrated GPU is using some of it.

You want sluggish? Try a MeegoPad T02, with Win10 Pro 32-bit. Now THAT's sluggish. Good old Bay Trail Atom 1.33Ghz quad-core, no "burst" speed. In fact, quite the opposite. Heavy multitasking, or continuous CPU usage (Skype, for example), will cause it to overheat and thermal-throttle downwards. After running Skype for 10-15 minutes on a video call, it runs at 0.49Ghz for me. Web browsing at the same time, will bring it down to 0.24Ghz. Under Linux, it causes a controlled restart.

Win 10 somehow made my tablet slower than 8.1, it's also running a Bay-Trail Z3740D.

 

[cooper69]

I put together a cheap socket 1150 combo from newegg.

case 29$ shipped
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811353056&ignorebbr=1

Corsair psu 26$ shipped
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139090

MSI H81 43$ shipped
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130731

Intel Pentium G3250 Haswell Dual-Core 3.2GHz 60$ shipped
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117449

G.SKILL NS 4GB (2 x 2GB) 28$ shipped
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231394

SanDisk Z400s 2.5" 128GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive 50$ shipped
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=0D9-0006-00089

That's 236$ shipped. You can double the memory (8gb) for 250$ shipped

That's much better than a outdated e8400 system and as cheap as cheap can be.

OP, your friends really need to up their budget over $150.00 if they want something decent.

i forgot to mention that the budget was actually $150 in Canadian, which brings it closer to ~$110 in USD haha. but yeah, in any case, i'll ask to stretch the budget next time and buy second hand haswells for the new coming builds.

the previous 2 builds were a special occasion with the e8400s. they already had some old 775 stuff (motherboards, ram and pentium 4 and pentium e2140 to be exact) on oem computers from way back in the day. ended up using that budget to get them an power supply, ssd, dedicated graphics card (9800gtx and 5850) and mid tower case. my mindset behind doing this would be to both allow them to play league of legends and maybe csgo, as well as giving them a cheaper upgrade path in the future, now that they have a quality psu and case. i knew the pentium 4 guy would experience a noticeable difference, but not too sure about that pentium 2140 guy

 

[dpk33]

edit: oops posted in the wrong thread

 

[nk215]

With that budget, how can one fit in a windows OS? Better buy refurb with a windows sticker.