What platform / CPU / APU do you recommend for people you build for?

[Magic Carpet]

The only game I played was chess when I was kid. Since 2002, I haven't played any games since. Call me crazy... I didn't even know PlayStation 4 was released.

Dammit

Can't say, I am a huge gamer myself, but I play games from time to time. Mainly because, I am curios and rather interested in technologies. Although, I pretty much stopped getting "wow" effects after doom and duke nukem (build based games pretty much), I think. Enjoyed recently Far Cry 4 quite a bit though.

On the other hand, this hobby of yours, hunting down low-cost CPU deals is rather interesting. What does your wife say? I hope you make a healthy profit on these deals

 

[SPBHM]

my main recommendation is to avoid things like Bay Trail Celeron/Pentium or Bobcat, Jaguar CPUs, other than that, I always thought the regular Celeron/Pentiums were a great option and I have recommended a few of these.

 

[frozentundra123456]

All the Llanos I picked up (as well as VirtualLarry) are brand new, OEM, and never used at discontinued prices.

OK, but what about motherboard, ram, psu, etc. Do you already have those on hand? If you have to buy them, then you might as well just get a modern platform. If you have them on hand they are in good condition? A modern big core celeron that will smoke any of those old processors in lightly threaded workloads like most people do is only 50.00 on new egg. I guess if it just is something you enjoy it is worth it, but otherwise, if you value your time and could be doing something else productive with it, those processors could end up being quite expensive. I guess I would consider using a Llano, athlon or core 2 duo system if I already had it, but I would never, ever, ever consider purchasing one now.

 

[crashtech]

Real browser boxes should be equipped with a i5, the fastest SSD, and 32 GB of RAM. Those who demand speed from their peripherals also should get the latest platform.

Not sure if serious...

 

[waltchan]

Dammit

Can't say, I am a huge gamer myself, but I play games from time to time. Mainly because, I am curios and rather interested in technologies. Although, I pretty much stopped getting "wow" effects after doom and duke nukem (build based games pretty much), I think. Enjoyed recently Far Cry 4 quite a bit though.

On the other hand, this hobby of yours, hunting down low-cost CPU deals is rather interesting. What does your wife say? I hope you make a healthy profit on these deals

I wish I could be like you. :thumbsup: I didn't have a great childhood life, as a matter of fact. Parents always punished their kids (me and my 2 brothers) if we sneaked in any video or PC games into the house. Parents didn't allow us to visit any friend's house for 18 years. Parents also wouldn't allow me to attend high school prom. I ended up with poor social development skills when I grow up, struggled in college parties, can't hook up with girls right, and all of these have affected my ability to find a good paying white-collar job with decent income.

That's how I ended up with obsolete CPUs...

 

[escrow4]

Not sure if serious...

Perfectly accurate, although I'd stop at 16GB of RAM for now. Those that say drop lower in the CPU department have likely never used an i5 or higher for browsing and felt the difference.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yes, I do need a Celeron G3900, but I refuse to pay over $30 for it. Maybe next year. My local Fry's Electronics store is dumping out Celeron G1850 for $25 after promo code all the time. I've bought at least five already. Pentium G3258 dumps out for $35 after promo code. Supply has dried up now, and Fry's no longer sell them at this price.

At $25 for a G1850, I'd build those all day long at that price for customers.

 

[crashtech]

Perfectly accurate, although I'd stop at 16GB of RAM for now. Those that say drop lower in the CPU department have likely never used an i5 or higher for browsing and felt the difference.

Well, I hope I wouldn't be characterized as one who hasn't browsed with a very wide range of CPUs. Sometimes an i5 can help smooth things our when there's a lot going on, but increasing the parts bill over $150 for such improvements is probably better spent elsewhere. An i3 is plenty for an content consumption machine, imo, and average users don't even use up 8GB with, say, a word processor, accounting software, and a dozen browser tabs open.

 

[escrow4]

Well, I hope I wouldn't be characterized as one who hasn't browsed with a very wide range of CPUs. Sometimes an i5 can help smooth things our when there's a lot going on, but increasing the parts bill over $150 for such improvements is probably better spent elsewhere. An i3 is plenty for an content consumption machine, imo, and average users don't even use up 8GB with, say, a word processor, accounting software, and a dozen browser tabs open.

$150 extra is nothing for a PC that will sit there and be abused day in and day out until it dies. As with those holding out with Core 2's - that box has been in service for over 5yrs. $150 over 5yrs is irrelevant for a box that will last.

 

[Torn Mind]

Well, I hope I wouldn't be characterized as one who hasn't browsed with a very wide range of CPUs. Sometimes an i5 can help smooth things our when there's a lot going on, but increasing the parts bill over $150 for such improvements is probably better spent elsewhere. An i3 is plenty for an content consumption machine, imo, and average users don't even use up 8GB with, say, a word processor, accounting software, and a dozen browser tabs open.

That's if your budget is constrained. But the ultimate web browsing box would not spare $150 to lose two cores. The rest should be spent on productivity-increasing peripherals.

I have been browsing since middle school in 2001 with a Pentium 3, a Netburst Celeron at 2.0 GHz, an E8400 at my university, a Celeron G550(which I am using now), and a couple of i7s. The i7s were the 3770S and 3770K, sometimes with cores disabled to fiddle around. The differences between i7s and Celeron are present even though one could say the Celeron is "tolerable" at default settings. The Celeron really wants a Speedstep boost of around 2.2 GHz, which I have done in Windows to eliminate any lag. But the i5 is perfect for those sudden demanding tasks that pop up or if one is into a "deep" browsing session.

If I go I i7 6700K, MSI Z170A PC MATE board, 64 GB RAM, a 512 GB M.2 950 Pro, Windows 10 Pro, a Blu-Ray writer, $60 Seasonic 360W PSU, and cheap $30 Cooler Master case, the build comes out to around $1275. Pare down the CPU, board, RAM, SSD, Windows 10 to Home, optical to DVD driver, and cheaper low wattage PSU, it goes below $1000.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'm not sure what's really required for "Ultimate" web browsing, but at least with the primarily single-threaded Firefox 64-bit browser, my G4400 Pentium Skylake dual-core, OCed to 4.455Ghz, and 8GB of DDR4-2400 (running roughly around 2500), and a PCI-E M.2 SSD, well, it's pretty darn snappy. The raw ST performance, combined with the low-latency PCI-E SSD, really helps.

The other AM1 1.4Ghz rig that I've been messing with, is horrible, compared to this rig. Even with an SSD. Even though the AM1 is a quad-core, and the OCed G4400 is dual-core.

 

[Raduque]

Unless somebody has a requirement for HPC - gaming, real-time video transcoding/editing or something similar - I recommend Surfaces and their competitors or other 2-in-1s.

I don't build anymore.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I'm not sure what's really required for "Ultimate" web browsing, but at least with the primarily single-threaded Firefox 64-bit browser, my G4400 Pentium Skylake dual-core, OCed to 4.455Ghz, and 8GB of DDR4-2400 (running roughly around 2500), and a PCI-E M.2 SSD, well, it's pretty darn snappy. The raw ST performance, combined with the low-latency PCI-E SSD, really helps.

The other AM1 1.4Ghz rig that I've been messing with, is horrible, compared to this rig. Even with an SSD. Even though the AM1 is a quad-core, and the OCed G4400 is dual-core.

Yea, I suppose a corvette or ferrari or some such is the "ultimate" car, but hardly necessary. Personally, I would go for at least an i3, but I am sure if one keeps their computer reasonably safe from excessive junk and doesnt try to do too much at once a pentium is more than adequate as well.

I also dont really buy the idea that one has to get a powerful system because the average user cruds up their system so much. I dont do anything special to keep my computer safe, and I have basically never had high cpu usage under no load. Well except for the beeping win 10 bug with Intel RST that is.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Unless somebody has a requirement for HPC - gaming, real-time video transcoding/editing or something similar - I recommend Surfaces and their competitors or other 2-in-1s.

I don't build anymore.

Surfaces?? Seriously?? The people you make recommendations to must definitely not be on a budget. Surface Pro 4 is a very cool device, and I would love to have one, but it would be hard to find a less cost effective computer.

 

[poofyhairguy]

One fun thing recently is Mac people coming to me wanting a Windows VR machine. Their budget is large but they want a box that is small. i7 time.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Too bad Intel doesn't release a "Celeron Web Edition" CPU - like a G3900, but with HD 530 graphics? Then again, they do have the G4500, which is a Pentium with HD 530 graphics, I believe. But it costs $90-100. Way too much for just a web-browsing box.

 

[escrow4]

Too bad Intel doesn't release a "Celeron Web Edition" CPU - like a G3900, but with HD 530 graphics? Then again, they do have the G4500, which is a Pentium with HD 530 graphics, I believe. But it costs $90-100. Way too much for just a web-browsing box.

A dual core isn't enough for any desktop anymore. May as well buy a tablet instead if you are buying a Celeron. A quad is mandatory if you want a box that actually lasts and has fluidity.

EDIT: Didn't you just buy 5 junky AMD CPUs with 5 equally junky mobos? You should have gotten an i5 6500 instead and chucked the Pentium you have.

 

[waltchan]

EDIT: Didn't you just buy 5 junky AMD CPUs with 5 equally junky mobos? You should have gotten an i5 6500 instead and chucked the Pentium you have.

VirtualLarry just bought another 3 more with A75 chipset this time. He's not interested in building 10x i5-6500, it will run him with a $2,000 bill. Instead, he can buy 10x A4-3300 for $85.55, and it still serves basic Windows 10 functions well.

If you don't like our ideas, then please leave. ()

 

[VirtualLarry]

If you don't like our ideas, then please leave. ()

LOL. I don't mind escrow4's comments, he's entitled to his opinion.

Maybe 5 years from now, his 5960x or whatever he's rocking now, will still perform well at software-decoding the current flavor of 4K web video, while my FM1 dual-core rigs will lag behind. But then I can just buy another low-end rig (or several), with the money that I've saved. Well, if I was saving anything, instead of buying 10x FM1 rigs... :|

Edit: It's a lot easier for me, psychologically, to drop $14 x 5 on a bunch of APUs, than drop $250 on a quad-core SKL CPU.

 

[frozentundra123456]

A dual core isn't enough for any desktop anymore. May as well buy a tablet instead if you are buying a Celeron. A quad is mandatory if you want a box that actually lasts and has fluidity.

EDIT: Didn't you just buy 5 junky AMD CPUs with 5 equally junky mobos? You should have gotten an i5 6500 instead and chucked the Pentium you have.

My work machine is an E8400, and for web browsing, i can absolutely tell no difference between that and my Sandy bridge quad.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Edit: It's a lot easier for me, psychologically, to drop $14 x 5 on a bunch of APUs, than drop $250 on a quad-core SKL CPU.

That is how I feel about hard drives.

 

[Raduque]

Surfaces?? Seriously?? The people you make recommendations to must definitely not be on a budget. Surface Pro 4 is a very cool device, and I would love to have one, but it would be hard to find a less cost effective computer.

If they're on a super-low budget I'll recommend a Chromebook or $250 Celeron laptop.

But a Surface 3 for ~$650 does everything "Good Enough" for the average user. Hell, I'm a power user and I used it just fine for a month while I waited for my G751.

 

[frozentundra123456]

If they're on a super-low budget I'll recommend a Chromebook or $250 Celeron laptop.

But a Surface 3 for ~$650 does everything "Good Enough" for the average user. Hell, I'm a power user and I used it just fine for a month while I waited for my G751.

650.00 for Atom???? One could buy a nice i5 desktop for that, or a laptop with a big core ULV i5.

 

[wilds]

I don't recommend the desktop form factor at all anymore. Most of my friends and family would take the iPad over any Desktop.

Laptops are the new Desktop imo. At that point, I recommend a $1,000+ Macbook or a $200 Atom netbook with eMMC.

Nobody in my family still uses their desktop. I'm amazed at how so many people have leap frogged from their XP machines to all-iOS within a short period of time.

 

[Raduque]

650.00 for Atom???? One could buy a nice i5 desktop for that, or a laptop with a big core ULV i5.

Desktops are large, noisy and use a lot of power. An i5 laptop is more than the average user needs. In my experience with people who ask for recommendations from me, they want smaller, lighter and thinner. If they actually need a Windows machine, the Atom does just fine. If not, iPad.

i5 and the equivalent "home" chipset, so H170, not the gimped H110

How is the H110 "gimped"? Genuinely curious about this.

the NUC isn't really needed unless you are looking for something small (not a lot of space in the house).
A mid-tower offers more room for expansion.

Average users don't want expansion, they want smaller, quieter and low power usage.