You don't know slow... (C-70 APU, Win10 64-bit)

[DrMrLordX]

Well, they were running Linux Mint 17.2. Around 40-50% CPU usage at idle. Scrolling (using the open-source drivers) was far less smooth and less "snappy" than Win10 or Win7.

"mate-panel" uses 25% CPU all the time.

Try Lubuntu instead of Mint.

Lxde is a good fit

Yes! Or XFCE, though I find that the easiest route to LXDE (Lubuntu) uses about 250mb less RAM at idle after boot compared to Xubuntu. If that kind of thing matters to you.

The biggest headache from LXDE is creating desktop "shortcuts".

 

[waltchan]

It's time for Intel to bring back the Celeron G470 2.0GHz Sandy Bridge if people keep returning cheap PCs like that.

 

[Blue_Max]

A fitting song to listen to while reading this thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOwQKWiRJAA

 

[sham63]

I installed win 10 on a HP DM 1 with an E-350 in it. It was getting pretty slow in Win 7 at the time. Win 10 is OK on it, just takes a few minutes to be usable after booting up. What is really slow is the Acer Aspire 1 ZG5. It was one of ones with the slow 8gb SSD. Well I had replaced that with a 32 GB SSD and upped the ram to 1.5gb a few years ago. Surprisingly that old Atom N270 can actually somewhat run Win 10. It just takes it a while to be somewhat usable after boot up, due to slow SSD, and maybe the amount of ram. Sometimes task manager will show like 99% disk usage.

 

[mikeymikec]

I'm not sure what the point is in this thread. Basically if the OP had done his homework to begin with; the fact alone that it's a 1GHz CPU should have provided a sufficient clue that performance wasn't going to be this processor's strong point. After that, a quick google shows that processor is a netbook grade processor, again they're not generally known for their decent performance.

While I get irritated by companies that sell equipment like this as if it's a good fit for the average user's needs in a general purpose computer, and I get irritated to a lesser extent with the average user not doing any research before purchasing, the OP should know better.

XP would probably perform well enough with this CPU, until you gave it a job to do, like web browsing! Perhaps an ideal usage scenario for this CPU would involve a grandma who only wants to type letters and print them using MS Works.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'm not sure what the point is in this thread. Basically if the OP had done his homework to begin with; the fact alone that it's a 1GHz CPU should have provided a sufficient clue that performance wasn't going to be this processor's strong point. After that, a quick google shows that processor is a netbook grade processor, again they're not generally known for their decent performance.

Well, the original point, was my incredulity that Win10's background thread processing was enough to overwhelm any CPU, resulting in 100% CPU usage at idle. Only, it turns out that it wasn't idle, it was doing whatever Win10 does when you first install it, which is run tons of stuff. After an hour or two it finally quieted down to around 10% CPU usage at idle, which was much better. (But made the original point of the thread invalid.)

 

[Ranulf]

I had an laptop with an A4-5000 I think take 25+ minutes the other week to settle down after boot up (7200 rpm laptop drive too) in win7. It could barely do anything at all the entire time. I figured it was the chip and that the system hadn't been turned on in months.

 

[mikeymikec]

Well, the original point, was my incredulity that Win10's background thread processing was enough to overwhelm any CPU, resulting in 100% CPU usage at idle. Only, it turns out that it wasn't idle, it was doing whatever Win10 does when you first install it, which is run tons of stuff. After an hour or two it finally quieted down to around 10% CPU usage at idle, which was much better. (But made the original point of the thread invalid.)

It's nothing to do with Win10, it has everything to do with the poor choice of processor. Similarly I would be laughed off the thread if I started complaining that Win7 doesn't perform as well as I'd like on a Pentium 4 from say 10-12 years ago, even though that probably outperforms the AMD C-70 (or at least bats in the same ball park). IIRC, even the E-350 has trouble competing with ~ten year old CPUs.

I'm glad to hear that the system in question has settled down, for now (10pc CPU usage on idle is still horrendous though). It'll probably start wheezing again when Patch Tuesday rolls around.

 

[VirtualLarry]

It's nothing to do with Win10, it has everything to do with the poor choice of processor. Similarly I would be laughed off the thread if I started complaining that Win7 doesn't perform as well as I'd like on a Pentium 4 from say 10-12 years ago, even though that probably outperforms the AMD C-70 (or at least bats in the same ball park). IIRC, even the E-350 has trouble competing with ~ten year old CPUs.

But the point is, that would be application performance of a P4 on Windows 7. Windows 7 itself has negligible overhead, even on a P4. (As long as you shut off Automatic Updates.)

This wasn't application performance, this was the OS itself. Windows 10 is a PIG.

I'm glad to hear that the system in question has settled down, for now (10pc CPU usage on idle is still horrendous though). It'll probably start wheezing again when Patch Tuesday rolls around.

Well, I try shutting off as much stuff as I can. I'm glad though that my initial assessment was wrong, and that Win10 isn't going to run at 99-100% CPU usage permanently on that rig. That was my initial impression, and what I was afraid of.

Even trying to web browse while at 100% CPU, was a better experience than Linux Mint, mostly because I hadn't installed the proprietary AMD drivers in Linux, and even though the background processing was only taking 30-50% of the CPU, scrolling was a lot slower, because that was using the CPU, so it was giving an inferior experience.

 

[Geforce man]

TBH, I'm afraid to buy a high-end laptop, as I figure it will end up (physically) trash, within a year or two. (Not performance trash.)

I spent list price ($350), on a nice Acer 1007U laptop, upgradable, dual-band Wifi, Windows 7, the works. It fell apart, and the charger has issues, after little more than a year.

I buy extreme low-end, because I figure regardless of how high I buy on the performance scale, they just won't physically last, so I might as well buy a new one every two years or so, that's minimally-acceptable for my usages.

Say hello to my 2009 MacBook pro. Still with original battery, lasts 4-5 hours. Still with original everything, aside form a samsung ssd (120gb?). Run quickly, great, and going on 7 years now. You really do get what you pay for. You could buy one of the higher end dell metal laptops, and probably be good for just as long, for a touch less than the macbook pro's also. Also buy used. Also don't buy low end stuff, it falls apart.

 

[jhu]

Say hello to my 2009 MacBook pro. Still with original battery, lasts 4-5 hours. Still with original everything, aside form a samsung ssd (120gb?). Run quickly, great, and going on 7 years now. You really do get what you pay for. You could buy one of the higher end dell metal laptops, and probably be good for just as long, for a touch less than the macbook pro's also. Also buy used. Also don't buy low end stuff, it falls apart.

Ditto my Sony Vaio with Core i5 3317U ($600). Honestly, for all the money Larry's spent, he could have bought a 5820K (at least) system and still have some money to spare.

 

[moonbogg]

All I know is Microsoft edge is a slow piece of crap no matter what CPU I use.

 

[XavierMace]

Windows 10 is a PIG.


Well, I try shutting off as much stuff as I can. I'm glad though that my initial assessment was wrong, and that Win10 isn't going to run at 99-100% CPU usage permanently on that rig. That was my initial impression, and what I was afraid of.

Even trying to web browse while at 100% CPU, was a better experience than Linux Mint, mostly because I hadn't installed the proprietary AMD drivers in Linux, and even though the background processing was only taking 30-50% of the CPU, scrolling was a lot slower, because that was using the CPU, so it was giving an inferior experience.

LOL. So much LOL.

With Chrome, Hangouts, Steam, Sophos, OneDrive, Origin, Cisco Anyconnect, and LGS running, I'm sitting at 4% CPU usage and Chrome/Hangouts is 3% of that. That's without going out of my way to shut ANYTHING down. Meaning auto updates are on, Cortana is on, etc.

Windows 10 isn't the problem. Your CPU is.

 

[waltchan]

C-50's single-thread score is only 264. Who's ready for it?