CPU for under 250 Euro?

Overheal

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

I think you're a few years off there!

Firstly, because in 2007 Pentium 4 was a dreadful processor for any sort of new build, and secondly, because Core 2's single thread performance was twice as fast as P4 anyway, so multi-core didn't even really come into it, Core 2 was just astoundingly effective compared to both Intel and AMD's other CPU's. Even before Core 2 was released, gamers were mostly AMD because their CPU's were far better, I can't think of any time after 2003ish that Pentium 4's would have been a gamers choice.

The last gaming P4 I bought was in 2003, replaced by a Core 2 in 2006.

Core 2 is still very efficient - I've run Bioshock Infinite on a E6550 fine. There was a good article on one of the sites recently that ran modern games with a high end card and old launch Core 2's, including the 2.13Ghz E6400 - a lot of the games actually still ran OK, which really surprised me on low a low clocked older cpu. BF4 single player is another one that runs almost identical on old Core 2's as it does on i7's when paired with a strong card.

Or whatever the leading single-core CPU was when I purchased the laptop. Might not have been P4.

My point is the same though, I've always had positive experience leaning within reason to going with more cores vs. less.

Right, what's better: 3770k or 3770 + 60 GB SSD?
I assume there is no point in overclocking CPU if I am not getting some ****-ass-big cooler?

At this point a 60gb SSD is hardly worth the effort. It will hold the OS and not much else. As an example if you wanted to play Titanfall, the game is 40GB in size on disk. You'd have to install it to a seperate drive anyway and wouldn't see any performance benefit from the SSD. Whereas an unlocked processor, that again is a great way to expand CPU longevity. Cooling isn't that big of a problem either, it's quite easy (and preferred) to get a nice cooler regardless. I happily run my CPUs at stock settings with watercooling because its far quieter (unless you get some batsh!t HVAC sized radiator like my cousin, who was a plonk about researching before he bought that thing it sounds like a hoover). Even with a locked multiplier my 1055t can be clocked from 2.8 up to about 3.8 comfortably. Things start to get less stable at 4.0 but usually only in benchmarks like Prime95, gaming was relatively straightforward. The only reason I don't run like that all the time comes very simply down to fan noise, I'm practically OCD about it. I wouldn't mind if it would just jump into those settings when I load a game though and clock itself down on the desktop. What a life that would be.

arleitiss

Overheal wrote: »

Or whatever the leading single-core CPU was when I purchased the laptop. Might not have been P4.

My point is the same though, I've always had positive experience leaning within reason to going with more cores vs. less.

At this point a 60gb SSD is hardly worth the effort. It will hold the OS and not much else. As an example if you wanted to play Titanfall, the game is 40GB in size on disk. You'd have to install it to a seperate drive anyway and wouldn't see any performance benefit from the SSD. Whereas an unlocked processor, that again is a great way to expand CPU longevity. Cooling isn't that big of a problem either, it's quite easy (and preferred) to get a nice cooler regardless. I happily run my CPUs at stock settings with watercooling because its far quieter (unless you get some batsh!t HVAC sized radiator like my cousin, who was a plonk about researching before he bought that thing it sounds like a hoover). Even with a locked multiplier my 1055t can be clocked from 2.8 up to about 3.8 comfortably. Things start to get less stable at 4.0 but usually only in benchmarks like Prime95, gaming was relatively straightforward. The only reason I don't run like that all the time comes very simply down to fan noise, I'm practically OCD about it. I wouldn't mind if it would just jump into those settings when I load a game though and clock itself down on the desktop. What a life that would be.

Right, I decided to went ahead with 3770k then, getting it from komplett, the prices are like 10-15% cheaper, don't mind waiting 3 days.

P.S - also the thrill of waiting for UPS at your house

TerrorFirmer

I would totally disagree on the 60Gb SSD comment, it's pretty common to have an SSD for your OS and apps, and a regular drive for games. The biggest advantage of an SSD is the fantastic boot times and instant usability of apps upon boot. I have a 240GB SSD I use for both but given the choice I would always go for the SSD option, even if it was for OS only. I also have a 20GB SSD+500GB regular drive in my laptop for the same reason.

Khannie

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

I would totally disagree on the 60Gb SSD comment, it's pretty common to have an SSD for your OS and apps, and a regular drive for games. The biggest advantage of an SSD is the fantastic boot times and instant usability of apps upon boot. I have a 240GB SSD I use for both but given the choice I would always go for the SSD option, even if it was for OS only. I also have a 20GB SSD+500GB regular drive in my laptop for the same reason.

Agreed. I'd rather have a small SSD + medium hard drive than a large hard drive. The difference an SSD makes is phenomenal.

yoyo

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

The Pentium D's were available in high clocked variants but they were rare enough, most common was the ones clocked at 2.8Ghz and 3Ghz, which were pretty crappy, and power hungry and hot running. No-one in their right mind would have chosen one over an X2 processor. I went back from the E6400 (2.13Ghz) to the Pentium D 820 (2.8Ghz), framerate in COD4 was cut in half.

I had a 2.6GHz one from memory. Still have it somewhere around the flat. I got it as I was reluctant to change to AMD at the time (don't ask me why now, it was a good few years back!).
I did change from a Nvidia to a AMD video card recently however and have slightly regretted it. Drivers do seem to be poorer and less stable.

Nick

Overheal

I'd save up for a larger SSD to be fair. My assertion not being it's a useless thing but a 60gb wouldn't interest me much at this stage. That said something that small is getting cheaper and cheaper, keep an eye out for a sale where you can probably get it for $30. There was a deal on tiger direct the other week for a 400gb SSD for $250 as an example. The prices on SSD is coming down

arleitiss

My budget is now 340 Euro.
I forgot to mention, I currently have 2.5" hard drive as main, 500 GB and it handles both: OS and games (one partition).

I was considering today: Just getting 3770k and some proper 3.5" Hard Drive, would that be better option?

Hate when I have such choices :L

5uspect

I'd go with the bigger SSD myself. It'll have the biggest impact on performance you've ever seen.

Have you checked your system out? How are the things I mentioned earlier?

stevenmu

Because you have specific software that you use for rendering and modelling, your best bet would be to investigate those and see how well they work with Intel vs AMD. Some software will work much better on an AMD 8 core, and some will work much better on an i5.

Gyck

I forgot to mention, I currently have 2.5" hard drive as main, 500 GB and it handles both: OS and games (one partition).

I was considering today: Just getting 3770k and some proper 3.5" Hard Drive, would that be better option?

I switched to 2.5" (7200rpm) drives for my various PCs OS's a while back - I couldn't take the noise/vibration from fast 3.5" disks. Then I switched to SSDs for the OS and migrated the 2.5" disks to hold games and slower 3.5" disks for data. Unless modern 3.5" disks run quietly and vibration free I'd steer clear of them. If you can stretch to a large SSD I'd go for that for everything, or a smaller one for the OS and recycle the 500GB for games.

IMO, of course.

Are you planning on reinstalling the OS?

Wossack

Sorry, just swinging back to your initial issues. I doubt it, but is the CPU hitting 100% when downloading via steam? If it aint, the problem most likely aint with your CPU (imo)

Any SMART errors coming from your hard drive? Ive a sneaking suspicion..

arleitiss

There seems to be no errors on HDD, could it be fault of slow reading/writing that it only has 5 gb usually free out of 500 GB? and that it was never de-fragmented (last time it was done like 2.5 years ago).

I know I am starting to get on everyones nerves with me being unable to decide but:


I've checked AMD cpu's, and I had this set in mind:
http://www.komplett.ie/product/zkb-01com/80009251/amd-fx-8350-black-edition-4ghz-socket-am3/details.aspx

http://www.komplett.ie/product/zkb-01com/80008127/asus-m5a97-evo-r2-0-socket-am3-atx/details.aspx


Even then it's 40 Euro cheaper than just an 3770k alone.

Overheal

Yep, thats the AMD difference.

5uspect

arleitiss wrote: »

There seems to be no errors on HDD, could it be fault of slow reading/writing that it only has 5 gb usually free out of 500 GB? and that it was never de-fragmented (last time it was done like 2.5 years ago).

I know I am starting to get on everyones nerves with me being unable to decide but:


I've checked AMD cpu's, and I had this set in mind:
http://www.komplett.ie/product/zkb-01com/80009251/amd-fx-8350-black-edition-4ghz-socket-am3/details.aspx

http://www.komplett.ie/product/zkb-01com/80008127/asus-m5a97-evo-r2-0-socket-am3-atx/details.aspx


Even then it's 40 Euro cheaper than just an 3770k alone.

No, you're getting on our nerves for not answering our questions about your system's health.

arleitiss

5uspect wrote: »

No, you're getting on our nerves for not answering our questions about your system's health.

Well as I said, there is no errors coming up.
Write speeds are usually average of 26 mb/s only. So when I copy big files across system it takes quite a while.

I decided to go ahead and get AMD, as I read some feedbacks online, it seems that 8 Cores are giving advantage in editing, rendering software.

Wossack

Could be a massively fragmented disk

They can slow down as they're near capacity I believe

/edit 26mb/s is very slow imo. Should be multiples of that

arleitiss

Wossack wrote: »

Could be a massively fragmented disk

They can slow down as they're near capacity I believe

/edit 26mb/s is very slow imo. Should be multiples of that

I know that it should be a lot more, but I can't run defrag right now as it will take pretty much life time, I was once away for 3 days, I ran disk defrag, 3 days later when I came back it was still only analyzing it, I can imagine defrag going on for lifetime.


P.S - When OS is re installed and disc is fully formatted, does it automatically defrag it and clean up and bring to fresh condition?

arleitiss

I got this PC by swapping my laptop, I had alienware laptop but then decided to switch to PC.
I swapped it to one guy, he had this built and I never opened it up yet, just did here are the extra details:

Motherboard: P8Z77-M PRO
RAM: HyperX Predator Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866
PSU: OCZ ZT Series 750 W (for some reason I always thought I had 950W)

stevenmu

Tbh even the lowest end CPU you could find should be orders of magnitude quicker than what you would need for copying/downloading files. I'd agree with the others that there would seem to be some other issue. My best guess would be a problem with your motherboard/sata drivers, it could be worth trying to track down the latest version and installing them. Other than that, it may a bad BIOS setting (you could try resetting to defaults) or possibly some kind of funny drive configuration in Windows.

Wossack

arleitiss wrote: »

I know that it should be a lot more, but I can't run defrag right now as it will take pretty much life time, I was once away for 3 days, I ran disk defrag, 3 days later when I came back it was still only analyzing it, I can imagine defrag going on for lifetime.


P.S - When OS is re installed and disc is fully formatted, does it automatically defrag it and clean up and bring to fresh condition?

Well not so much automatically defrag it, the disk will be blank when writing to it, so it can write contiguously to it (no gaps) on install. There'll be some fragmentation still (just always is), but it'll be much much reduced. Also, since there will be a whole lot more free space, defrag should be quicker - as it wont have to do so many 'moves' to create continuous files

If its an option for you, it could be worth trying imo. Could also tidy up potential drivers issues as mentioned.

arleitiss

I made an order anyways, the mobo and amd cpu.
Should be here on monday.

Thanks for your help.


P.S - if with new cpu and mobo I will be getting 26 mb/s write speed I will throw the HDD out the window.

Overheal

arleitiss wrote: »

I know that it should be a lot more, but I can't run defrag right now as it will take pretty much life time, I was once away for 3 days, I ran disk defrag, 3 days later when I came back it was still only analyzing it, I can imagine defrag going on for lifetime.


P.S - When OS is re installed and disc is fully formatted, does it automatically defrag it and clean up and bring to fresh condition?

http://www.piriform.com/defraggler

MC_G

arleitiss wrote: »

Well as I said, there is no errors coming up.
Write speeds are usually average of 26 mb/s only. So when I copy big files across system it takes quite a while.

I decided to go ahead and get AMD, as I read some feedbacks online, it seems that 8 Cores are giving advantage in editing, rendering software.

The 3770k has 8 cores (4 + Hyperthreading) and generally would eat the amd's lunch editing, trans/encoding and rendering.

You will get good bang for your buck with the amd but you already had a decent enough MB with the z77 chipset.

Your big problem as others have stated seems to lie with your hdd though. If you're going to do serious editing, you want probably 3 drives to distribute the application, source files and output.

Good luck.

5uspect

No, it has 4 cores and 8 threads. Threads are not cores.

MC_G

Why I had 4 + hyperthreading in parantheses... apologies. Given that the reviews the op read said an 8 core cpu would do better in editing I didn't want to confuse the issue.

An 8 thread 3770k will still walk all over an 8 core 8350 or 8320 at rendering, editing and transcoding.

Plus it will do it using less power, generating less heat and running quieter.

Given the difference in price 40 euro for an 83xx + Mobo vs the 3770 the op quoted, which would be a better long term buy in your opinion?

5uspect

Of course a newer Intel i7 CPU will do a lot better. Doesn't quite do so well in multi threaded tho.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/697?vs=551

Not everything uses hyperthreading and in some cases it can degrade performance. It's confusing to refer to it as eight cores in comparison to an actual eight core processor.

My suggestion was the older i5 which offers similar overall performance to the AMD and would have been cheaper. The problem is that the there's somethig seriously wrong with the OPs machine and throwing new silicon at it is probably not the best idea until the problem is found.

arleitiss

I assume that's ****ty results?



I assume that's no errors?



P.S - any specific setting I should look for in BIOS?

arleitiss

I have feeling it's the MOBO fault.
When I was fixing my laptop, I took out HDD from it and wanted to format it completely. But first I hot-plugged HDD to my PC and backed up all files onto my PC. Even Reading/Writing on that hard drive was really slow.

yawhat!

Reset your bios, switch sata connection to another one. More than likely a hard drive issue!

MC_G

I'd also suspect that it's a slower hdd in the 1st place being 2.5" (generally lower cache and spin speed) and the op said it's usually running at more than 99% full and probably quite fragmented compounding the situation.

As mentioned, it could be bios, sata ports/cables, sata and chipset drivers or even hdd firmware.

What is the model on the hdd?