MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
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Hi all,
Total computer novice, not bought one in years. So, is AMD any good as they seem a bit cheaper than Intel. Or should I avoid like the plague?
What are you planning on doing with said chipset?
AMD stepped up their game with the Ryzen chip, for gaming Intel still wins hands down but bang for your buck, AMD wins IMO
To be honest I haven't bought a computer game for years, just need something for office, internet, watching films etc.
Then tbh the state of play in 2017 is that practically all PCs are more powerful than you need.
It won't really make much difference for office or Internet use.
If going AMD the only ones worth considering are the new ryzen processors. As above they have stepped up thier game after years of boring.
Anything older I'd avoid they've only recently stepped up to challenge Intel with the ryzen series.
It's impossible to recommend anything without a budget though, other than make sure it has 8gb of ram and an SSD drive.
The processor is not so critical for a domestic pc, as long as it's not utterly crap.
Under 500, 8gb of ram seems standard at that price but not the SSD hard drive
SSD is a must in my book. I wouldn't run a computer that didn't have one.
Many high street retailers are still pedalling huge mechanical hard disks that no one would ever fill, it's just marketing for mugs.
A 240gb SSD is a good size, or even a 120gb if you are not into games and don't want loads of films storrd on it.
And even then you can always buy a cheap slow mechanical drive for media storage.
My current drive system is :
240gb SSD for system and games I'm currently playing.
500gb mechanical drive which is basically a dumping ground.
And 2 250gb drives which are backups for music, and are mirrored, incase one of them fails.
While we are on it, can anyone recommend a laptop for around £300 (present for Christmas)? Only for Word, Excel, Internet etc?
frak me is it 1995 again
As above, for general office use basically anything in your price range will do.
Does the laptop need to run office applications? If not, might be worth looking at a Chromebook.
Looks like you can use office online even if you did need to actually.
I'd generally advise against getting a laptop unless you really need the mobility, a good smart phone can take care of that and laptops generally are expensive and pants unless you want to spend serious money.
If you really want a bang for buck ranking look at logical increments, it focuses on gaming and custom build but gives you a good idea of hierarchy. As of yet 8th gen Intel isn't on the list due to a general lack of availability but 8th gen i3 is last gen i5 and everything else gets 2 more cores. Except i9, they just rammed cores into them for fun, the top dog has 32. They have a blog post that explains this though.
I have two pc’s made out leftovers from d machines.
One has an AMD6300 the other an intel i5 3570. Both have 8gb ram and 120gb ssd and w10. The AMD machine has a graphics card for Zwift.
In use I cant tell any difference between the two.
That's because they are near as dammit the same:
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i5-3570-vs-AMD-FX-6300
I doubt most light users could tell the difference. These days Intel usually wins on single core performance whilst AMD does better multi-core.
if you want the most fps then intel is still ahead of ryzen. I've got an R7 1700 overclocked to 3.9. Games that rely heavily on GPU don't get bottlenecked on CPU till you get to a 1080.
A ryzen 5 1600 is a great buy if you want new. I'm selling my old system which has a brand new PSU and 1 TB HDD for £160. Comes with a basically new case, FX6300 16 GB ram and a basic graphics card. If you stuck a higher end card in then it would pretty much play all games no problem. Second hand market is pretty good at the moment for the slightly older generation.
if you want the most fps
Totally critical for running Office.
Unless you're video editing or hardcore gaming then there's probably little noticeable difference.
As others have said, plenty of RAM is extremely useful and although my gaming rig doesn't have one(!), an SSD is a very good idea. I just put up with long loading times.
Cougar - Moderator
Totally critical for running Office.
😆
I hadn't thought about the idea of trickle down technology
I3 processor.
Will play multimedia YouTube and office no problems and beam to a compatible tv without a cable.
Games? I bought a PS4 Pro for that and never have the time to play.
For your usage, this is a very good chip
[url= https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/8gKhP6/intel-pentium-g4560-35ghz-dual-core-processor-bx80677g4560 ]https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/8gKhP6/intel-pentium-g4560-35ghz-dual-core-processor-bx80677g4560[/url]
It's dual core, but has hyperthreading.
I have two PCs:
1) Ryzen 1600 Overclocked, 16gb ram, huge graphics card, SSD's + big HDs would set you back £1000+ new ( https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/HHFD6X)
2) HP ProDesk 600 G1 (500GB, Intel i5-4570 4th Gen 3.2GHz, 4GB) I bought off eBay for less than £100, added 4gb of ram and 250gb SSD for £60. (like this, but put the ram in the right slots!!! https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/i5-Hp-prodesk-Desktop-600-G1-PC-Hp-i5-Desktop-3-3GHZ-Ram-8-GB-500-GB-Hard-drive/282741213340?hash=item41d4b0889c:g:xvAAAOSwNWxaEwE0 )
I can't tell the difference between them in general use. 😆
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Well in 'general use' you won't tell the difference.
Much in the same way if you ride your bike half a mile to the shop to buy a bacon sammich, it doesn't really matter that much matter sort of bike it is, assuming it is mechanically sound.
Not a great analogy as a 40 year old bike will do, but a 40yo pc certainly won't do. But hopefully you'll get the jist.