Buying an SSD to make up for slower CPU?

[IlliterateDino]

Would you guys recommend buying an SSD to make up for weaker CPU? At least I read somewhere else that says a good SSD could make up for some speed with slightly slower CPU. I'm planning on buying a CPU around 110 dollar category from either company.

What's the better trade off? Sending less on CPU for an SSD, or spending more on CPU and use a traditional HHD?

 

[Emulex]

for most general users, go for SSD.

Doesn't matter how fast your cpu is , if it is waiting for the hard drive.

 

[Coup27]

Get an SSD and then spend whatever else you can afford on a CPU. Having your OS and apps on a HDD is a painful experience in 2012.

The only reason you would want to spend as much as you can on a CPU and keep a HDD is if you do a lot of "compute" work, like rendering or calculations. If you are just a regular user who wants quick program launching and OS updating, then an SSD is essential.

 

[IlliterateDino]

I forgot to mention I play games and edit videos. Though I do plenty of program launching as well.

 

[GoSharks]

I forgot to mention I play games and edit videos.

Is this like a once or twice a year or like every week? If every week, I would spring for a faster CPU over a SSD.

 

[IlliterateDino]

More like every month or so.

 

[Cerb]

Would you guys recommend buying an SSD to make up for weaker CPU? At least I read somewhere else that says a good SSD could make up for some speed with slightly slower CPU. I'm planning on buying a CPU around 110 dollar category from either company.

What's the better trade off? Sending less on CPU for an SSD, or spending more on CPU and use a traditional HHD?

Depends: are you worried more about storage or CPU performance? If it's either/or, a non-MMO gamer would probably be better off spending on the i5 than the SSD.

For the casual gamer, developer, web/email/docs user, the SSD will provide a benefit many times greater than the superior CPU.

For light loads, an i3 will be practically no different than an i5.

Video editing I don't do, but it seems to depend on the software. Non-linear work can apparently eat up storage IOs badly in some software, even with lots of RAM. OTOH, practically every non-FOSS video editor will make good use of faster and more CPUs, so...hard to say. If you're not sure, bring up task manager, then resource monitor, and check out your CPU, RAM, and disk IO loads, while doing some video editing. If you have CPU utilization dropouts at the same time as lots of HDD IO (or high wait time), an SSD would help that.

If you're waiting for applications to load, or ever-annoyed at the ticking and blinking away of the HDD, then you definitely want the SSD.

 

[Blain]

I forgot to mention I play games and edit videos. Though I do plenty of program launching as well.

A SSD isn't going to compensate much at all for a slower CPU in those tasks.
But you can get some good performance in your usage by picking the right "CPU around 110 dollar".
I'd get a SSD anyway. Using it in conjunction with a spinning platter HD (for storage of edited video), will make for a snappy machine.

 

[hhhd1]

What is your current CPU ?