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CPU What CPU for everyday browsing?

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by mansueto, 2 Nov 2013.

  1. mansueto

    mansueto Too broke to mod

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    My neighbours pc is on its way out and instead of buying one from the store they've asked me to put something together.

    I'm just wondering what would be the best value for an everyday basic pc; browsing the internet, youtube, microsoft word, etc. They normally buy more than they actually need to have the pc last up to 4 years, which is what got me thinking, what would be a suitable cpu?

    I was thinking an i3 3220, but being a dual core I'm not sure about the longevity of the cpu in 3-4 years time. Is it worth looking at any of AMD's offerings such as the 6300, or is it worth looking into one of the locked i5s such as the 4570?
     
  2. MrJay

    MrJay You are always where you want to be

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    Ivy Bridge Pentiums are a winner : ) especially for what they want it for.

    i5 is a bit of an expensive overkill, haven't tried any of the AMD FX stuff so couldn't possibly comment. Unless you get them an Octacore for the same price as the i5.
     
  3. Yslen

    Yslen Lord of the Twenty-Seventh Circle

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    Pretty much anything works for those uses. An i3 is almost overkill for word processing, but it's a solid choice in case they want to do something a bit more demanding in the future.
     
  4. littlepuppi

    littlepuppi Currently playing MWO and loving it

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  5. AlienwareAndy

    AlienwareAndy What's a Dremel?

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    I had a Celeron G530 once and it was fine for every day use :)
     
  6. MrJay

    MrJay You are always where you want to be

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    Oo that's a tasty price on the Haswell Pentiums, didn't know they went for so cheap!
     
  7. AlienwareAndy

    AlienwareAndy What's a Dremel?

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    Don't they do a Celeron? I paid £34 for mine lol.
     
  8. CrapBag

    CrapBag Multimodder

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    Personally I'd say any cheap cpu and a half decent SSD is more preferable.
     
  9. mansueto

    mansueto Too broke to mod

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    Well that g3430 looks fantastic! Any specific motherboard / chipset to look out for? They really dont need anything special for inputs / outputs. They use a 2.1 speaker setup, basic dell keyboard, mouse and monitor. Not sure on what connections are available for the monitor though.
     
  10. erratum1

    erratum1 What's a Dremel?

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    My E6600 dual core is still ok for those purposes plays 1080p video fine.

    Can't do 4k though but how long before that becomes the norm?

    I was on a course where they had laptops with fibre connections I tried playing a 1080p youtube video and it couldn't handle it...so it's still a fairly good cpu.
     
  11. rollo

    rollo Modder

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    dell box £300 job done

    does all mensioned and is cheaper than any DIY job if you need windows.
     
  12. bawjaws

    bawjaws Multimodder

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    I would have thought that a £35 Celeron would be sufficient for the next wee while. There's not much future-proofing required for really basic stuff like going online or word processing, is there? By the sounds of things they just need a really basic PC, so there's no point in over-speccing.
     
  13. theshadow2001

    theshadow2001 [DELETE] means [DELETE]

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    Your probably right on this, but thats not the bit tech way.

    Sounds to me like this an mitx amd apu cheap ssd type build.
     
  14. mansueto

    mansueto Too broke to mod

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    That is going to sound absolutely terrible but they always have me fix their pc's but never pay me, however they did say they would pay me to build them a desktop. I figure at the end of the day if they're calling me to fix something, I'd rather have built it myself, PLUS make me some money.
     
  15. rollo

    rollo Modder

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    Im used to been free tech support, Its why I said the dell box lol they provide the tech support.
     
  16. mansueto

    mansueto Too broke to mod

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    They always buy dells and they started charging for phone support so for the last few years they've been calling me, the odd time they might give me a few beers but for the most part its all free work, so I'm going to take advantage where I can.
     
  17. Harlequin

    Harlequin Modder

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    AMD A8 based APU - better than all the Intel tosh mentioned above
     
  18. mansueto

    mansueto Too broke to mod

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    I think the intel would be better since most of the basic computer functions would benefit from single-threaded performance. Ended up pricing them the following system:

    Intel Pentium G3430
    Gigabyte GA-B85M-D3H
    8GB Corsair Vengeance (overkill, I can always drop it down to 4GB)
    Corsair CX430 (could go smaller but with a $20 mail-in-rebate, its only 25 bucks)
    1TB Seagate drive (overkill, but its on sale for $60, 5 bucks more than a 500GB drive)
    120GB Samsung 840 EVO (Solid-state will give this enough snap to make it impressive and last)
    Cooler Master n200
    Samsung CD/DVD combo drive
    Windows

    Any similar spec'd dell didn't include a SSD. With the fee I charge, it's pretty much the equivalent of buying a dell and throwing an SSD in it. I actually love building pcs, just hate doing it for free, so I'll gladly throw this together and set it up in a few hours. They also have the added convenience of having it ready to go out of the box, not having to worry about settings windows up, and having the individual component warranties beats having a system that has a 1 year.
     
    Last edited: 3 Nov 2013
  19. loftie

    loftie Multimodder

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    While I agree about the single threaded performance of Intels probably being better at the price point you're looking at, you really won't notice a difference.


    Enjoy! :thumb:
     
  20. Harlequin

    Harlequin Modder

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    for the money your spending on that setup you can get an AMD A10-6800k , faster in single and multi threaded apps -and you can game on it (something the Pentium cannot do at all)
     

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