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how dated is my system now

T2urtle

T2urtle

Diamond Member
I've been thinking of upgrade to a NEW PC for the x-mas time. A little tread to myself, maybe do a SFF build. Small budget build.

I dont game anymore, I mainly use the PC to download/watch/convert video in 720p. Its all simple stuff like web/office/ some minor Photoshop, i dont mind the wait.

Processor Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU E2200 @ 2.20GHz
Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT
Gaming graphics 1535 MB Total available graphics memory
Primary hard disk 22GB Free (233GB Total)

I have a 2nd 750GB hard-drive.


Is this rig somewhat close to a dinosaur? Is the new entry level stuff so much better?
 
Yeah, that's pretty old, but if it's still serving you well, it's serving you well. I wouldn't say being old is sufficient condition on upgrading unless you're seeing unacceptable performance in the things you want your system to do.

That being said, more modern CPUs will offer dramatically better performance in some of the tasks you mentioned, like video encoding and photoshop, and their integrated graphics options allow them to decode/playback HD video w/o graphics cards. In fact, QuickSync on intel's igpu allows hardware acceleration of video encoding w/ fairly good performance as compared to CPU-only encoding.

Here's a head to head w/ Haswell Quad-core:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/67?vs=837

Here's head-to-head w/ a 2-module AMD APU:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/67?vs=675

In particular, in h.264 encoding you're looking at at a 4-5x increase in speed. If you do a lot of encoding, that will be noticeable.

Also, more modern motherboards support higher bandwidth connections like SATA 6Gb/s to take advantage of things like SSDs which make everything about interacting with a computer better, and USB 3.0 which is standard on basically all external drives now.

If you have a particular budget in mind, we could put together a sample SFF build for you, and then you could come back when you're ready to build to see what kind of deals you can get.
 
Yes, that qualifies as a dinosaur. Go ahead and treat yourself, you've held off long enough! Even if you don't intend to game you are at the point where you will see a marked improvement in just normal daily use by upgrading. I'm a gamer and that is my primary use, but I'm about to build a new PC and my current one is considerably newer than yours. You're sitting on hardware that is more on par with what I had two builds ago.

If you give us a budget we can probably make some suggestions, but the mid-range list sticky at the top is probably a good place to start. I would recommend Intel CPU and a Samsung 840 SSD as two must-haves along with 16gb of 1866+ RAM.
 
T2urtle said:
......
Processor Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU E2200 @ 2.20GHz
Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT
Gaming graphics 1535 MB Total available graphics memory
Primary hard disk 22GB Free (233GB Total)

I have a 2nd 750GB hard-drive.

Is this rig somewhat close to a dinosaur? Is the new entry level stuff so much better?
Click to expand...

Its getting close to being a dinosaur for the things that you do, like converting videos. You can do without a new graphics card in your new build and just use integrated graphics like the APU or intel graphics.
 
Do you have a preferred form factor?

ATX?
mATX?
mITX?
NUC vesa mounted to a monitor? 😀

Also, any stuff you'd care to reuse, or any new software to purchase? (Windows, blu ray playback, etc?)
 
No form factor ideally.

Price of $500-800 would be for the whole PC. I'll buy another monitor and etc with another budget.

My stuff 19 in. wide monitor, mx518 and keyboard is all dated stuff. Need another copy of windows 7/8
 
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U guys making me feel like this is a super turd.

Its been working for me for a good while. I have to deal with delays but work around it.
 
T2urtle said:
Processor Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU E2200 @ 2.20GHz
Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT
Gaming graphics 1535 MB Total available graphics memory
Primary hard disk 22GB Free (233GB Total)

I have a 2nd 750GB hard-drive.


Is this rig somewhat close to a dinosaur? Is the new entry level stuff so much better?
Click to expand...

1 generation C2D pentium.
That would place the cpu somewhere arround 2006-2007.
And yes i feel its old for the speed u get at the cost in power.

And yes... any Pentium G on the current SB/Ivy platform would absolutely decimate your platform and eat less wattage while doing it.
Im even willing to make a guess and also say Haswell's HD4000 IGP would probably even do better then your 8600GT.
 
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If you don't have any problems with it than just get an old c2d cpu from the bay and stick it in . I'm pretty sure your mobo can handle something faster.
 
Without gaming you could squeeze in a 4770 and H87 board and run off the iGPU. Then you'll be wondering why you waited so long to upgrade.
 
T2urtle said:
No form factor ideally.

Price of $500-800 would be for the whole PC. I'll buy another monitor and etc with another budget.

My stuff 19 in. wide monitor, mx518 and keyboard is all dated stuff. Need another copy of windows 7/8
Click to expand...

A PC without a form factor wouldn't be much of a PC. :awe Since you mentioned SFF, I'm going to assume you want ITX.

Less than $800 will buy you a machine that will knock your socks off for encoding, even including the cost of a Windows license.

i5 4570 $200
ASRock H87M-ITX $94
Team DDR3 1600 8GB $60
Samsung 840 EVO 250GB $185
Reuse HDD $0
Reuse ODD (if you even want one) $0
Silverstone SG05B w/ 300W PSU $95 AR
Windows 8.1 $100
Total: $734 AR
 
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Here's a completely excessive haswell i7 in a SFF like you mentioned in OP:

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($304.98 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock H81M-ITX Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard ($71.97 @ Newegg)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($177.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX Tower Case ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 300W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($39.99 @ Mwave)
Total: $769.90

Feel free to swap in an i5 or an i3:
haswell i5 4570 for $200
haswell i3 for $120

You could also consider dropping down to a single stick of RAM.

Recycle existing HDDs for storage drives.

Overall, this will feel like night and day for your use case.
 
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Essence_of_War said:
Here's a completely excessive haswell i7 in a SFF like you mentioned in OP:

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($304.98 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock H81M-ITX Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard ($71.97 @ Newegg)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($177.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX Tower Case ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 300W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($39.99 @ Mwave)
Total: $769.90

Feel free to swap in an i5 or an i3:
haswell i5 4670 for $220
haswell i3 for $120

Recycle existing HDDs for storage drives.

Overall, this will feel like night and day for your use case.
Click to expand...

No Windows license unfortunately.
 
Haswell NUC units are going to be out soon. Might consider one of those.

If the OP doesn't want to spend too much, might I suggest a Q8300/8400 or Q9300/9400/9450/9550 off of the Bay, and an SSD?

If you have a Microcenter nearby, they have IB Celeron G1610 CPUs for $35 + tax OTD. That might be false economy though, because those chips lack quicksync.
 
Everything is like foreign to me. God processors names and specs have changed.

I'm a little giddy now at the thought of a new rig. So I'm going to spend $500 on PC itself and $300 on monitor/keyboard/randoms. Aiming at a SFF, a small cube/shoebox. I don't need a disc drive. I'll run a USB 3.0 external down the line to free up money, can also add more ram later down the line.
 
Well both of the cases that mfenn and I found are good for the cube/shoebox feel!

Come back when you're ready (or close to ready) to build and we can help you find the best deals!
 
T2urtle said:
Everything is like foreign to me. God processors names and specs have changed.

I'm a little giddy now at the thought of a new rig. So I'm going to spend $500 on PC itself and $300 on monitor/keyboard/randoms. Aiming at a SFF, a small cube/shoebox. I don't need a disc drive. I'll run a USB 3.0 external down the line to free up money, can also add more ram later down the line.
Click to expand...

Does "randoms" include the OS or is that included in the $500? Really though, you should arbitrarily split up your budget into categories. You should just list out everything you need and your total budget.
 
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