Best CPU for daily use ?

[jmurray01]

Simple enough question, what do you think ?

When I say daily use, I'm talking about a computer which isn't maxed out with Ram or HDD space and isn't used for high memory applications, just a nice placid PC which runs an older OS and is used for emails and forums mainly.

I personally would recommend the AMD Duron, as that is what I have in my main PC (Windows 2000 Professional 5.00.2195 SP4 with 253,428KB Ram and a 18.6GB HDD) and it runs smooth as a piece of silk. I won't say it never freezes or lags occasionally, but for the most part it is much better than processors of the same specifications (Itel Pentiums).

Anyway, your thoughts ?

 

[wolfeking]

If building or buying new for that purpose, I would run a Intel Celeron or Pentium or maybe a Athlon 2.

Personally I have ran 2000 on a Core 2 Duo t7100 with 80GB HDD and 2 GB RAM on a NVS135m GPU and it ran just as well as vista and XP. Any core 2 would be fine for normal every day uses.

 

[jmurray01]

Is the Duron a core 2 ? Sorry, I've let my knowledge of computers slip since collecting Vacuum Cleaners (long story!).

 

[wolfeking]

no, it is a single core single thread processor. The Core 2 is a intel brand name. They had single core core 2s.

I was just saying what I would use. Really there is no need to go really far back to run a older OS. But really anything newer than Pentium 3 will run 2k perfectly.

 

[jmurray01]

Sorry for the questions, but is the AMD Duron newer than P3 ?

 

[wolfeking]

It came out about the same time. Duron was released about a year after pentium 3, but they were competitors. Pentium 3 went out in 03 and Duron went out in 04 and was replaced by Sempron.

 

[jmurray01]

Well that is reassuring that the Duron kept going 4 years after Windows 2000s release, as if it ceased production immediately after release I would suspect there were problems with the two running together, but it seems not.

 

[wolfeking]

well, you can not really put it to a vote based on that. Duron was not made for windows 2000, and neither was pentium 3. And really they should not be compaired. Athlon to Pentium and Duron/sempron to Celeron.

2000 was a professional Operating system. The consumer OS of that time would have been Windows ME. They run differently, but if a processor would run ME it would run 2000 as 2000 was better coded and more efficient. As well as being based on NTFS, which is still around to this day.

To go back to answering the thread question, It depends on what generation. A Athlon 2 would be far better than a Pentium 3. But a P3 would be far better than a 8086. Its all about what you are comparing to. And there is no 100% best CPU for daily use.

 

[jmurray01]

Ah, I didn't know that!

I suppose it would be, as it is based on NT technology.

It was far superior to Millennium Edition in my opinion.

 

[spirit]

Simple enough question, what do you think ?

When I say daily use, I'm talking about a computer which isn't maxed out with Ram or HDD space and isn't used for high memory applications, just a nice placid PC which runs an older OS and is used for emails and forums mainly.

Hey, great to meet another Brit kid!

Even for very basic tasks I wouldn't use anything older than a Pentium 4 or an Athlon 64. My Mum and my brother just generally use the computer to do work, listen to music, read emails, go on the web etc - Mum has a P4 HT and my brother an Athlon 64 3800+. Both work fine. If you start going older than that then you'll get performance issues on XP and newer I find.

As for the RAM, well my brother has 1.25GB with Windows 7 and Mum 2GB with XP, seems to do the job, again wouldn't want to go any lower. Tried my brother's PC with XP and 256MB of RAM, he said it was slow so I threw in a 1GB stick. I'd say 1GB is definitely an absolute absolute minimum these days.

If building new or looking at newer parts I'd go for a Celeron or a Pentium or one of AMD's lower-end chips such as the A4/A6/A8 series with an integrated GPU. Pair one of those chips with 4GB of RAM and hey you've got a very nice basic PC.

Just my thoughts.

 

[Mishkin]

I second what vistakid said.

Thought I had accidentally woken up in 2005 there for a second.

 

[AntimatterAsh]

If building or buying new for that purpose, I would run a Intel Celeron or Pentium or maybe a Athlon 2.

Personally I have ran 2000 on a Core 2 Duo t7100 with 80GB HDD and 2 GB RAM on a NVS135m GPU and it ran just as well as vista and XP. Any core 2 would be fine for normal every day uses.

Vista? Eurgh!!!!!!!!!!

But I agree here... I have tried the Athlon 2 and the Pentium 4 dual cores and they run Windows 8 like a dream... Only 3gb Ram on the x64 Athlon and 1 1/4gb in the x32 Pentium 4.... they run perfectly... even if the Pentium 4 takes 5 minutes to boot, it runs smoothly. I would recommend the Athlon 2 more though, since it can boot Windows 8 in 6 seconds... I timed it I know you don't want a new OS on it, but if it runs newer technology well, and you are looking at it anyway... it is a good indicator of performance and quality. This is in a laptop too by the way (Read my signature...)

 

[AntimatterAsh]

Hey, great to meet another Brit kid!

Even for very basic tasks I wouldn't use anything older than a Pentium 4 or an Athlon 64. My Mum and my brother just generally use the computer to do work, listen to music, read emails, go on the web etc - Mum has a P4 HT and my brother an Athlon 64 3800+. Both work fine. If you start going older than that then you'll get performance issues on XP and newer I find.

As for the RAM, well my brother has 1.25GB with Windows 7 and Mum 2GB with XP, seems to do the job, again wouldn't want to go any lower. Tried my brother's PC with XP and 256MB of RAM, he said it was slow so I threw in a 1GB stick. I'd say 1GB is definitely an absolute absolute minimum these days.

If building new or looking at newer parts I'd go for a Celeron or a Pentium or one of AMD's lower-end chips such as the A4/A6/A8 series with an integrated GPU. Pair one of those chips with 4GB of RAM and hey you've got a very nice basic PC.

Just my thoughts.

You say that about the ram but I ran x32 Windows 7 on a Pentium 4 single core with 512mb... It was ludicrous... the computer ran at 65% CPU and about 85% Ram in idle haha...:good:

 

[spirit]

You don't want to run Windows 7 on less than 1GB, I'm amazed it actually runs on 1.25GB for my brother pretty well, but he just uses it to surf the net and stuff.

 

[wolfeking]

Vista? Eurgh!!!!!!!!!!

Vista is a perfectly fine OS. It got a bad rap at release, and it had nothing to do with the design of the OS. The companies that were releasing drivers for it did a half arse job with them and ruined the OS for a lot of people. But 7 is basically vista underneath, with only a few extra items, so if you like it and rap on vista your being antilogical.

 

[spirit]

Vista is a perfectly fine OS. It got a bad rap at release, and it had nothing to do with the design of the OS. The companies that were releasing drivers for it did a half arse job with them and ruined the OS for a lot of people. But 7 is basically vista underneath, with only a few extra items, so if you like it and rap on vista your being antilogical.

The whole "Vista vs 7" argument is getting old now, just like the whole "XP vs Vista" argument got old. That ^ basically sums it up. Vista is fine; but of course others will have different opinions. Many people who criticised it only used it when it was first released years ago and never tried it later on once it had been updated a great deal.

 

[FuryRosewood]

Vista becomes a chore due to UAC when your installing stuff over and over. (software tester) i end up doing that alot, and the popups...are damn annoying, it is a bit heavier, espically the 64 bit variant on weaker hardware, you can 'feel' the difference. so yes, vista sucks, but without vista 7 would not be nearly as good as it is. That is a fact and you cant sweep it under a rug

Regardless, in this day of age, id say anything C2D or A64x2 or greater would be good for general use, though with modern machines, even a celeron or pentium 1155 chip can also do the task well id imagine.

 

[Darren]

I wouldn't want to use anything lower than a Pentium 4 these days. Also I feel that using an old OS is pointless when Windows 7 is fairly cheap and easy to get. RAM is so cheap that getting 4GB is only about 30 dollars or less and a CPU would cost you about 60 dollars.

 

[AntimatterAsh]

Vista is a perfectly fine OS. It got a bad rap at release, and it had nothing to do with the design of the OS. The companies that were releasing drivers for it did a half arse job with them and ruined the OS for a lot of people. But 7 is basically vista underneath, with only a few extra items, so if you like it and rap on vista your being anti logical.

I just don't like it... it has messed my mums pc up... takes forever to start and is an ass for networking on a Windows 7 and 8 filled network... XP was never that hard... I respect what you have said but I guess it is down to experience... I dont have a top range laptop, Its an HP Pavilion DV6. Its three or four years old, and has the well known design defect that means it can not vent heat correctly, so has to be elevated and have a heatsink usb fan beneath it... It hated windows 7, it would have died if I had put vista on it, but with only 3gb of ram, it starts up in 7 seconds something that Vista could never do.

 

[wolfeking]

to start in 7 seconds you must have a SATA 12GB/s SSD. lolz. With the proper mods that is perfectly reasonable with both vista and 7 on a SSD. Im running just over 20 seconds on vista with a 7200RPM HDD, a SSD could put that into the sub 10 second range.

And I never had an issue with networking on vista. Probably because I don't network much. Loved it on 2000. Could not figure it out on 7. Had issues both getting into the XP system and getting into the Vista from the XP system.

I think that a lot of the issues people faced with Vista had to do with systems that were not powerful enough to run it actually running it. Ive never had an issue with it, and I ran it from release on a Compaq desktop (walmart special, so probably not the best, but back then as long as it would play MOH it was fine to me), a DV7 and Toshiba L305D, and my current rigs over time. 1GB+ and a modern processor seems to be about all it ever needed.