Is this PC worth upgrading?

Torqay

RUSTEDCORE wrote: »

less knowledgeable people seem to not know it but yes windows 7 is better on older devices than xp. You can lol all you want but go google and you will see the benchmarks by sites like cnet.

Glad you mentioned benchmarks, here the results of a comparison I made only recently between fresh installations of three 32-bit versions of Windows (the results of Windows 2003 should be comparable to XP):

Core i3 2120, 4 GB RAM, Radeon HD 6450 (1 GB)

FTT-z (CPU / Thread)

Windows 2003 Server: 343 / 85.8
Windows 7 Ultimate: 341 / 85.3
Windows 8 Professional: 341 / 85.3

GeekBench

Windows 2003 Server: 6352
Windows 7 Ultimate: 5953
Windows 8 Professional: 6329

Passmark 7

Windows 2003 Server: 1643.0
Windows 7 Ultimate: 1478.0
Windows 8 Professional: n/a

CrystalMark 09

Windows 2003 Server: 183054
Windows 7 Ultimate: 178269
Windows 8 Professional: 173368

Boot time (all auto login):

Windows 2003 Server: 24 sec
Windows 7 Ultimate: 39 sec
Windows 8 Professional: 31 sec

Intallation time (without drivers)

Windows 2003 Server: forever and a day (mainly because of the required interaction)
Windows 7 Ultimate: 22 minutes
Windows 8 Professional: 17 minutes

As for the LOL, your claim that Windows 7 will run better on a machine with 256 MB RAM is utterly ridiculous and casts serious doubts over your "knowledgeability".

yoyo

Torqay wrote: »

Glad you mentioned benchmarks, here the results of a comparison I made only recently between fresh installations of three 32-bit versions of Windows (the results of Windows 2003 should be comparable to XP):



As for the LOL, your claim that Windows 7 will run better on a machine with 256 MB RAM is utterly ridiculous and casts serious doubts over your "knowledgeability".

Comparing a server OS with a normal install of Windows 7 Ultimate is hardly comparing like with like in fairness.. Sure if you cut half of 7s processes you will speed it up.
Being honest Windows 7 runs as good if not better than XP on my "XP Certified" Dell Inspiron 9400, boots quicker and shuts down quicker, too.
If you want to keep the machine another year and then replace it after, stick to XP but I wouldn't bother upgrading the RAM. Otherwise look into getting a Windows 7 or 8 license or getting a new one. Those are the best options, as XP support will end in a year and as we all know XP isn't exactly the most secure OS Microsoft brought out

As for the LOL, your claim that Windows 7 will run better on a machine with 256 MB RAM is utterly ridiculous and casts serious doubts over your "knowledgeability".

True, Wouldn't like to be even running XP on SP3 on anything lower than 1GB RAM!

Nick

Torqay

People come here for sound advice and you want to talk someone into buying a Windows 7 license for a computer worth 20 quid? Seriously?

A Dimension 9400 has a Core 2 Duo processor and 667 MHz RAM, truly a "beast" in terms of processing power* when compared with the computer in question. Windows 7 on a 10 year old computer (oozing with bottlenecks: a single core processor w 512kb L2 cache, ridiculously low memory and bus speed, probably an IDE hard drive) will be slow as f*ck, regardless the amount of memory you add or (following riclad's logic) the number of services you "knock off".

Pentium 4 3.0 GHz w HT desktop CPU



Mobile Core 2 Duo CPU (as it can be found in a Dimension 9400)

RUSTEDCORE

Torqay wrote: »

Glad you mentioned benchmarks, here the results of a comparison I made only recently between fresh installations of three 32-bit versions of Windows (the results of Windows 2003 should be comparable to XP):



As for the LOL, your claim that Windows 7 will run better on a machine with 256 MB RAM is utterly ridiculous and casts serious doubts over your "knowledgeability".

Your benchmarks mean nothing to me when they differ from organisations who design the benchmark software itself.

and as for windows 7 on 256mb ram it really depends how well you understand the differences from xp to 7. 7 uses resources more efficiently that is a fact so a tweaked version of 7 that can still do everything 7 is supposed to do requires the same ram as xp but uses it more effectively.

RUSTEDCORE

Torqay wrote: »

People come here for sound advice and you want to talk someone into buying a Windows 7 license for a computer worth 20 quid? Seriously?

A Dimension 9400 has a Core 2 Duo processor and 667 MHz RAM, truly a "beast" in terms of processing power when compared with the computer in question. Windows 7 on a 10 year old computer (oozing with bottlenecks: a single core processor w 512kb L2 cache, ridiculously low memory and bus speed, probably an IDE hard drive) will be slow as f*ck, regardless the amount of memory you add or (following riclad's logic) the number of services you "knock off".

I think most of us who suggest 7 do so because we get it free and it is better but obviously he shouldnt spend more than 50 on the pc....including ram and thermal paste.

Mod:-No piracy talk.

WAS TALKING ABOUT FREE LICENSE FROM WORK
also some people pay annually to get access to any/all microsoft software (cant remember what its called

Defiler Of The Coffin

RUSTEDCORE wrote: »

Your benchmarks mean nothing to me when they differ from organisations who design the benchmark software itself.

and as for windows 7 on 256mb ram it really depends how well you understand the differences from xp to 7. 7 uses resources more efficiently that is a fact so a tweaked version of 7 that can still do everything 7 is supposed to do requires the same ram as xp but uses it more effectively.

Are you being serious here? Windows 7 requires at least 1GB of RAM

yoyo

Torqay wrote: »

People come here for sound advice and you want to talk someone into buying a Windows 7 license for a computer worth 20 quid? Seriously?

A Dimension 9400 has a Core 2 Duo processor and 667 MHz RAM, truly a "beast" in terms of processing power when compared with the computer in question. Windows 7 on a 10 year old computer (oozing with bottlenecks: a single core processor w 512kb L2 cache, ridiculously low memory and bus speed, probably an IDE hard drive) will be slow as f*ck, regardless the amount of memory you add or (following riclad's logic) the number of services you "knock off".

If you read my post again you will see I am not suggesting that, quite the contrary. I am saying there is no point in buying more RAM if you are going to keep XP, as it's support will end in a year and you would be foolish to continue allowing it on the net. My 9400 has a Core Duo @ 1.4Ghz/core (from memory). This chip is actually closely related to the Pentium 4 I believe.
I have seen Pentium 4 systems working well enough with Windows 7. Hence I said with a bit more RAM if you don't want to get a new machine it should work ok. I never said to the op they "should" do this, but if they are looking to upgrade the machines hardware, it would make no sense sticking to an OS that only has a year left of support.

Nick

Torqay

Defiler Of The Coffin wrote: »

Are you being serious here? Windows 7 requires at least 1GB of RAM

Now he's suggesting piracy, can't really take him serious.

Torqay

yoyo wrote: »

My 9400 has a Core Duo @ 1.4Ghz/core (from memory). This chip is actually closely related to the Pentium 4 I believe.

The slowest CPU used in this series was a Core Duo T2300, a 65 nm chip with 2 physical corses and not even remotely related to the 3.0 Northwood, a 130 nm chip, there's a handful generations between the two. Oh, and it's still more than twice as fast.

Torqay

RUSTEDCORE wrote: »

benchmarks mean nothing to me when they differ from organisations who design the benchmark software itself.

Care to explain this in plain English please?

yoyo

Torqay wrote: »

The slowest CPU used in this series was a Core Duo T2300, a 65 nm chip with 2 physical corses and not even remotely related to the 3.0 Northwood, a 130 nm chip, there's a handful generations between the two. Oh, and it's still more than twice as fast.

For "an odd bit of browsing and Microsoft Office" the PC would probably run fine on Windows 7. Do you really suggest it's beneficial to the OP to pay €40/50 for more RAM and stick to an OS that will have support ended in a year? I would agree that it would not be quick on Windows 7, I never said it would, however I would imagine with a RAM upgrade and Windows 7 the difference between XP and 7 would be negligible, XP was always an unoptimized mess, did you use this OS from the start by any chance? If you did I'm sure you'd agree

Nick

Torqay

yoyo wrote: »

Do you really suggest it's beneficial to the OP to pay €40/50 for more RAM

You can pick up 512 MB PC2700 RAM for a Fiver on adverts.

yoyo wrote: »

and stick to an OS that will have support ended in a year?

Absolutely, at least the OP has a license for it and doesn't have to cough up 100 yoyos for a new one, unless of course, they'll grab it for free on the interwebs, as suggested... Because for that kinda money, they'll get a 2nd hand C2D desktop.

yoyo

Torqay wrote: »

You can pick up 512 MB PC2700 RAM for a Fiver on adverts.



Absolutely, at least the OP has a license for it and doesn't have to cough up 100 yoyos for a new one, unless of course, they'll grab it for free on the interwebs, as suggested... Because for that kinda money, they'll get a 2nd hand C2D desktop.

Even on a gig XP will run very slow though, XP SP3 needs at least 2GB to run anyway decent in my experience, same with Windows 7. Your looking at 50ish for 2 here hence the reason I stated it would be pointless. I wouldn't advise only putting another 512MB into the machine, my 2cs anyways

Nick

Torqay

Even XP SP3 can be optimized, you know?

You can tweak the sh*t out XP and reduce it to 15 processes, less than 10 if you're adventurous, heck, it'll "run" on an 8 MHz machine with 20 MB RAM.

yoyo

Torqay wrote: »

Even XP SP3 can be optimized, you know?

You can tweak the sh*t out XP and reduce it to 15 processes, less than 10 if you're adventurous, heck, it'll "run" on an 8 MHz machine with 20 MB RAM.

I suppose that argument could be used for 7 also... But anyways I've had enough arguing, XP is going to be useless in a years time unless you intend to keep the system offline, I wouldn't spend any money on a machine that will be retired in a years time. I still stand by my advice, and do not for one moment believe that Windows 7 would not perform acceptably on a P4 with 2GB RAM as I have seen similar systems running it fine

Nick

Defiler Of The Coffin

yoyo wrote: »

I suppose that argument could be used for 7 also... But anyways I've had enough arguing, XP is going to be useless in a years time unless you intend to keep the system offline, I wouldn't spend any money on a machine that will be retired in a years time. I still stand by my advice, and do not for one moment believe that Windows 7 would not perform acceptably on a P4 with 2GB RAM as I have seen similar systems running it fine

Nick

I have to disagree with this also. Even if the OP's PC already had 2GB of RAM installed I still don't think the performance with Windows 7 would be in anyway acceptable for anything but the most lightweight of tasks. That doesn't even include web browsing

Torqay

OK, let's recap:

A computer worth feck all.

Spend €5-10 on some extra RAM. reinstall the OS you own and use it happily for another year (or beyond, if you're suicidal). In the meantime save some cash for a new machine.

Or, on top of that, you buy Windows 7 for 100 yoyos ish only to find out in a year or two from now that it will not even run then current web browsers smoothly anymore (this stuff evolves too just as the websites they're supposed to render, you know, and not exactly at a slow pace).

Now, which is a justifiable investment and which is a waste of money?

RUSTEDCORE

Defiler Of The Coffin wrote: »

I have to disagree with this also. Even if the OP's PC already had 2GB of RAM installed I still don't think the performance with Windows 7 would be in anyway acceptable for anything but the most lightweight of tasks. That doesn't even include web browsing

just built a 3ghz pentium d machine with 2 gb 333 ram and 256mb agp graphics card

Runs league of legends/minecraft/sd youtube
Not exactly on the ball responsive constantly but im comparing it to my gaming pc..for an average user its very usable.

Defiler Of The Coffin

RUSTEDCORE wrote: »

just built a 3ghz pentium d machine with 2 gb 333 ram and 256mb agp graphics card

Runs league of legends/minecraft/sd youtube
Not exactly on the ball responsive constantly but im comparing it to my gaming pc..for an average user its very usable.

The OP's machine is a Pentium 4, not a Pentium D. You're not making a like-for-like comparison

RUSTEDCORE

Defiler Of The Coffin wrote: »

The OP's machine is a Pentium 4, not a Pentium D. You're not making a like-for-like comparison

oh right...been up 40 hours
will switch to p4 in morning and post some stats..maybe screengrabs

Torqay

RUSTEDCORE wrote: »

just built a 3ghz pentium d machine with 2 gb 333 ram and 256mb agp graphics card

Apples and oranges... The Pentium D 830 (CPUMark 665) is a 90 NM CPU with two physical cores and 2 GB L2 cache and your computer's memory speed is double that of the computer we're talking about here.

Defiler Of The Coffin

RUSTEDCORE wrote: »

oh right...been up 40 hours
will switch to p4 in morning and post some stats..maybe screengrabs

Yeah post them up man, would be interesting!

And get some sleep...

TerrorFirmer

I have Win7 on a s478 P4 3Ghz with 1.5GB Ram. Runs fine for web browsing, youtube, etc.

Torqay

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

I have Win7 on a s478 P4 3Ghz with 1.5GB Ram. Runs fine for web browsing, youtube, etc.

So would Windows XP...

I'm still not convinced, that spending 100 yoyos for an operating system to be used on a computer worth next to nothing, is a sound investment. I have seen Core 2 Duo computers being offered on Adverts.ie for less. And you can be sure the user experience is different as night and day.

Torqay

I have Windows 7 running on an ASUS Eee PC 701 (900 MHz Celeron M, 2 GB RAM, 4 GB SSD). Runs fine for web browsing, youtube, etc.

(Now thank me, yoyo!)

riclad

Wheres the 100 euros, coming from, 2gig ram is 30 euros approx.
Most people i know use pcs, for youtube,music, facebook, browsing the web.
A pc with 2gig ram, cpu 3.oghz, is fine for that.

Torqay

riclad wrote: »

Wheres the 100 euros, coming from

Another one under the impression that Windows 7 is free? Last time I checked, Windows 7 Home Premium OEM cost just under 100 yoyos.

riclad

IF you have a legit windows cd, install xp on it.
Install avast antivirus, and do all the updates, get sp2 ,security updates, etc
I understand xp support is ending next year,
so, im not sure is it safe to use xp
ON a pc if there is financial data, or if its being used in a business.
Windows 7 is much more secure than windows xp.,

aSligoDub

Give it a rub of ccleaner first and see how it is then..

RodgersLFC

Defiler Of The Coffin wrote: »

I have to disagree with this also. Even if the OP's PC already had 2GB of RAM installed I still don't think the performance with Windows 7 would be in anyway acceptable for anything but the most lightweight of tasks. That doesn't even include web browsing

I have run Windows 7 Ultimate on a Dell Inspiron 1300 with a 1.8Ghz Pentium M processor and 2GB RAM, and I can assure you, it worked fine for email, web browsing and even streaming on youtube.