£300 Desktop Recommendation

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I said he shouldn't dismiss dual cores because the vast majority of quad cores in budget are using a different and slower design rather than being the same CPU with more cores.

I suggested a G4400 might be a better choice than a Kaveri A8/A10 because it comes with dedicated HEVC video encoding/decoding hardware so if he's using that video format the CPU usage would be much lower during video usage and videos would also convert faster.



Even assuming you were swapping between them in the same system then you're not comparing like for like. The Q6600 has twice as much cache per core. Given that cache is all about preventing longer waiting times that could very well have been a bigger factor than the extra cores.

Plus it was a different situation to the current one. Even with your 2.8Ghz E6300 the Q6600 still had much more total processing power. Here we're comparing similar amounts of overall processing power but split into two stronger cores or four weaker ones.

The E6300 and Q6600 had the same cache per core as the Q6600 was a pair of E6000 dual core dies.

My E6300 was at 3.4GHZ to 3.5GHZ and the Q6600 at 2.4GHZ - I also had the A6 3670K and a Core i3 2100 and a i3 3220. Mates with some of the later APU chips. I tried switching off HT and running them as pure dual cores - the A6 3670K still was preferable for me(that is with using a discrete HD5850 in both). The whole issue is not the per thread performance,but the fact the OS still needs to schedule tasks between the threads - 4 slower threads is still going to be generally smoother IMHO than two quicker ones(unless it is a mahoosive difference) and remember we are not looking at even double the speed per thread on the Intel chip. If you look at the more Intel friendly Cinebench software,R15 scores about 90ish on ST cores,and the G4400 is around 130ish,so around 45% faster on the Intel chip,but it has half the threads. It is going to have lower throughput.

Reviews are going to just run clean systems in a best case scenario - they are testing isolated CPU performance.

There are even extreme examples of that - a while back I built a rig for a mate who was running single threaded bioinformatics stuff. We ended up with a Phenom II X6 - we ran a few tests with other CPUs and the Intel chip was faster,but the issue is that in throughput terms it was worse(6 vs 4 instances),and he still had a usable rig if he was running a similar number of copies of the software,.and it was a consideration since these runs could last days at a time.

Edit!!

You make a good point about the HEVC encoding abilities of the G4000 series(I believe AMD Bristol Ridge will appear with it sometime this year),but remember there is still going to be a degree of load on the CPU,anyway and the G4400 has a lower number EUs when compared to the G4500. The issue I have is that most people are using these chips in a media setting as dedicated HTPC machines - the problem,is the father of the OP is using it as his primary machine. I still remember that video on a well known YT channel when someone tried streaming and gaming at the same time an FX8350 managed to do outdo a Core i5 3570K(!!),and they could not even believe it(even though it was repeatable),and they had never really bothered with an AMD chip and bought it on a whim. Then there is the other one on AT forums when a chap noticed if he pushed the IGP on a fews CPU including Intel dual core and Core i7 chips(IB or Haswell - can't remember which one),the CPU scores went down quite a bit,and the CPU was not throttling,and it was worse on the dual core he had(the A10 he had strangely did not suffer as much even though AMD has more issues with memory bandwidth with their memory controllers than Intel in theoretical tests).

[jigger]

I would build it myself. http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/V3w4nn

The best Intel build that makes the most sense. http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/pspPnn

[lmaolmao]

I'd check out CEX for some cheap DDR3 if you aren't going to overclock. £8 for a 4gb stick £18 for an 8gb one.

[pp05]

Looking for a new desktop for my Dad, to replace is current one which is probs getting on for 10 years old! He only needs something basic, quad core, mostly used for internet browsing, word processing and online streaming. Not to bothered about loads of storage, as he has a few HDD's in his current machine that he is just going to move over to his new one. Perhaps a small SDD for OS?

The reason for him wanting to upgrade is that his now one is just too slow. He likes to have lots of browser windows open, and is finding if he has more than a handful it is grinding to a halt and even crashing completely.

Any recommendations greatly appreciated.

I think you have the right idea. Even a fresh install of Windows would speed things up. He is what would be described as casual user and is well catered for at the budget end. Even a celeron can handle that workload but just to have a bit extra grunt for the future.

At least 2gb, small ssd (64gb - optional) and a minimum dual core (opt for 65w tdp because you can have a more quieter system overall). Or just use an existing hard disk. Do you have gfx card that you can bring forward?

[Khel]

If your dads desktop is 5 years old i suggest you have to buy a new one with skylake build. Atleast i3 series can do the job just add gpu if you will use it for photoshop .and 8gb ram atleast

[norman044]

i would suggest a Pentium G3260 to start with, its a very capable cpu and is socket LGA1150. So you can later upgrade to something more powerful very easily.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

NVM - wrong thread!!