Help to buy new CPU

[alders]

This is what I am looking at only I want Win7 Pro it is a pre built system. help and advice is very much welcomed. This will be used for games as well as graphics and general use. Thank you

PB 3455 Core i5 750 2.66G 4GB DDR3 Ram ,1TB 64M 7200RPM HDD , GTS250 1GB Video Card , CM 690 II Case , 460W PSU , Windows 7 Home Premium 64

 

[whs]

If you are looking for speed, get a small 30GB SSD for the OS. That will give you a world of difference. No idea what they cost in NZ, but around here they sell for less than US$100 (e.g. OCZ Vertex 30GB).

 

[alders]

I have looked up some prices for SSD here a little costly still. I understand they cut down on noise and heat but doesn't really speed it up. Will look at that later on. I was looking into the Acer Aspire Z5610 with the touchscreen but can only find small hard drives in NZ, plus couldn't find much info on them.

 

[whs]

but doesn't really speed it up

That must be a misunderstanding. In my experience, nothing can speed up your system more than an SSD. E.g. I get a 15 second boot. I am not a great fan of touchscreens. I think it is only a gimmick.

 

[Zepher]

but doesn't really speed it up

That must be a misunderstanding. In my experience, nothing can speed up your system more than an SSD. E.g. I get a 15 second boot. I am not a great fan of touchscreens. I think it is only a gimmick.

So, if I have a P4 1.4Ghz, 256MB Ram machine with a 40GB IDE drive, getting a 30GB SSD will speed up the system more than adding 1GB of Ram?

 

[alders]

whs my husband works at a mill they use touchscreens to run the plant has done for years. The reason I was looking at them is he is not very computer savy and I thought this option would be better for him. Now I am intersted in anyones point a view of all topics

 

[whs]

but doesn't really speed it up

That must be a misunderstanding. In my experience, nothing can speed up your system more than an SSD. E.g. I get a 15 second boot. I am not a great fan of touchscreens. I think it is only a gimmick.

So, if I have a P4 1.4Ghz, 256MB Ram machine with a 40GB IDE drive, getting a 30GB SSD will speed up the system more than adding 1GB of Ram?

LOL, I was thinking of todays PCs (duo or quad core, 2-4GB of RAM), not some box you borrowed from the Smithsonian museum.

 

[lkiller123]

What kind of performance would you like to upgrade?

Your CPU is already sufficient for most needs unless you are doing CPU-intensive work such as Video Processing or such, or you can overclock it if you want. But considering that your system is a pre-built, overclocking processors might not be possible. You would need to upgrade your PSU if you want to have another card.

As someone else mentioned above, you might like to get SSD if you want faster boot speed, or else you won't need to spend the extra money on it.

If you want better framerate for gaming, you might want to consider a second GTS250 to run in SLI, if your prebuilt system has another PCIx16 slot for you to run it.

 

[alders]

lkiller123
That system is what I am looking at buying and wanted to know if that is OK

 

[lkiller123]

Do you mind if you can provide us with a direct link?

 

[Sanvean]

Hi Alder,

Cnet has a review of it:
Acer Aspire Z5610 Desktop reviews - CNET Reviews

For general usage that system will be fine, even has 4 gigs of ram.
Nice of you to think of a touchscreen for your husband, since he uses one at work.
Will help him acclimate better.

The gpu is a 512MB ATI Radeon HD 4570.
There is some very knowledgeable ATI users on this forum, so hopefully they can chime in it's gaming abilities.

 

[alders]

PB Technologies Auckland - Computers - Laptops - Hardware Components - Software

 

[stomper]

The gpu is a 512MB ATI Radeon HD 4570.
There is some very knowledgeable ATI users on this forum, so hopefully they can chime in it's gaming abilities.

@alders , I have been using the ATI HD4850 card for the last 1.5 years and I'm very pleased with it, but lately it's taking a bit strain, especially with the new Battlefield BC 2, I can run everything on max but as soon as I push the anti anilalizing higher than x2 it starts to struggle.

ATI's 4800 Series: HD 4850, 4870 reviewed

So if you looking for a gaming PC I would say the ATi 4570 will be fine for "now" but a few months from now you're gonna be dissapointed.
If you can go for something in the ATI 5000 series....

.... ATI Radeon? HD 5770 Graphics

Hope this help a bit.

 

[alders]

Thank you so much you are making things a little clearer for me. I am certainly impressed with the advice
on the sevenforums and am enjoying reading all the tutorials and advice.

 

[HILLBILLY]

G'day Alders,
I'd like to know what king of gaming/graphics work you will be doing with the PC, as well as budget.
If you're into gaming, or hardware intensive work, I may be able to help.
With reguards to the rig you linked to, there's not much info about the parts, and I'd be tempted to ask them to swap in a bigger Graphics card and a bigger power supply.
If you can get a new Radeon 5770 you'd be much better off for gaming, better performance, DirectX 11 support, that sort of thing. I'm not sure about over in NZ, but across the ditch in Aus the 5770's are usually priced around $20 more than the GTS 250s, and have a damn good performance advantage over them. Well w orth it if you ask me.
With reguards to the rest of that PC, the CPU looks perfect, the Core i5 750 is one of the better ones in the new range, and will easily handle most of the stuff you can throw at it. Coupled with 4 Gig of DDR3 RAM, that thing would fly.
The 1 TB hard drive looks good, 64MB cache and 7200 RPM means it'll be a fast little sucker. The only other thing I can tell you about it, is the CM-690 II case is a pretty damn nice one.
As I said, I'd probably go with a bigger PSU and 5770 graphics card, the rest however looks fine.

...I am certainly impressed with the advice
on the sevenforums and am enjoying reading all the tutorials and advice.

If you wanna see a few awesome machines, have a read through the http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/347-show-us-your-rig.html thread
There are some awesome set ups in there, and may help you decide on what you want.

 

[sergiogarcia9]

You should be good off with that system. It good a mid gfx card (where high cards are GTX 295's and such) a excellent processor (alltho i would recommend AMD instead) and a big Hard Drive. The ram is good as well

Also i would reccomend min. a 500w PSU

 

[alders]

As for the budget not sure how far I can push husband. This one is the next one up in price.
PB 3590 Intel I7 860 2.80G P55 USB 3.0 Motherboard , 4GB DDR3 1600MHz , 1TB 7200RPM HDD , ATI 5770 1G VGA , 550W Extreme PSU , CM690 II Ad

Question I was given OEM Win7pro as a gift (not been used) can I use it on this machine as has no OS.

 

[thefabe]

You most certainly can use your Windows Seven Pro. Naturally the i7 would be a great upgrade if you can slide it by the husband. Fabe

 

[whs]

As for the budget not sure how far I can push husband. This one is the next one up in price.
PB 3590 Intel I7 860 2.80G P55 USB 3.0 Motherboard , 4GB DDR3 1600MHz , 1TB 7200RPM HDD , ATI 5770 1G VGA , 550W Extreme PSU , CM690 II Ad

Question I was given OEM Win7pro as a gift (not been used) can I use it on this machine as has no OS.

This looks like a very nice and powerful PC. And it is ready for the future (USB3). I would love to have one of those. And, of course, you can use the Win7 OEM on it.

 

[sergiogarcia9]

That PC looks excellent All you might want now is some more ram, but that you can always upgrade later