More RAM or new PC?

[topographical]

Howzit Guys.

I've had my PC for more than 5 years now and I've since formatted it a number of times as well as got an SSD as my main drive. I think I formatted it last about 6 months ago. It recently has been very slow. It is especially slow when I'm using google chrome and have a few tabs open (I have emptied cache etc). I don't play games or do anything really intensive. Its got 4GB of DDR2 800Mhz RAM as well as an old E7400 Intel CPU. I'm also still on windows 7. It seems wasteful to upgrade the CPU as it would probably cost me not much more to just get a new PC so I'm just wondering whether it's worth getting more RAM? I've noticed that most of the time, my RAM sits around 60 - 65 % used. Bear in mind that my motherboard only supports up to DDR2 800.

Thanks a ton!

 

[EmileS]

Get a new (upgrade) PC. SSD was a good purchase, but not a good match for the PC you have.

I'd suggest you get an i3 (Haswell), and H81 motherboard, with atleast 4GB of DDR3 RAM. These components will be perfect for you and won't break the bank. Just keep the SSD for the new PC.

Nothing wrong with Windows 7, most of us still use Windows 7 (including me). No need to upgrade to Windows 8. I wait 2 iterations of Windows before upgrading. If you had XP though, it's a no brainer to upgrade to a new OS. I went Windows 3.1 -> 95 -> 98 -> XP -> Windows 7. Now I'm waiting to see what Windows 9 will deliver, if it will even be called Windows 9.

 

[CamiKaze]

Get a new (upgrade) PC. SSD was a good purchase, but not a good match for the PC you have.

I'd suggest you get and i3 (Haswell), and H81 motherboard, with atleast 4GB of DDR3 RAM. These components will be perfect for you and won't break the bank. Just keep the SSD for the new PC.

Nothing wrong with Windows 7, most of us still use Windows 7 (including me). No need to upgrade to Windows 8. I wait 2 iterations of Windows before upgrading. If you had XP though, it's a no brainer to upgrade to a new OS. I went Windows 3.1 -> 95 -> 98 -> XP -> Windows 7. Now I'm waiting to see what Windows 9 will deliver, if it will even be called Windows 9.

+1.

What are you using your pc for?

 

[killadoob]

Is your pc 64 or 32 bit?

If you have windows 7 32 bit you can't get more memory.

 

[mr_norris]

It depends how much money you want to spend.

If I were in your shoes, and I wanted to save dosh, I would:

- Upgrade to Windows 8.1 (for me, it gave new life to a really old PC and laptop)
- Find a second hand chip more powerful than yours
- Find another 4 gigs of RAM

Using my parents machine as an example. Before I found parts to upgrade:

- IDE HDD
- 2 Gigs of RAM
- E6600 CPU
- Win 7 64

Most of the parts were at least 5 years old. Possibly older.

I managed to get hold of SATA drives (a friend gave them to me), a Q6600 (as before), another 2 gigs of RAM (cost me something like R150 for the module) and I bought Win 8 and upgraded. My parents use it for internet, shows / movies and a bit of gaming (Flight Sim X). It runs as if it were new.

I saved myself loads of dosh - while I was lucky and got freebies, there are second hand parts around out there.

 

[kayvee]

Get a new PC, honestly. It's time.

 

[topographical]

Thanks for all the helpful responses.

+1.

What are you using your pc for?

Very simple things really. Browsing and a decent amount of media (youtube, netflix etc).

Is your pc 64 or 32 bit?

If you have windows 7 32 bit you can't get more memory.

Nope, I'm on 64 bit.

I guess the most logical step to take from here would be asking what the cheapest PC I could build that would blaze for everyday tasks and multitasking?

 

[EmileS]

I guess the most logical step to take from here would be asking what the cheapest PC I could build that would blaze for everyday tasks and multitasking?

Give us a budget if you can.

Also, would you require a new case, DVD-ROM, PSU, keyboard, mouse, screen, HDD?

Or, you can post what you have now, and we can see how we can incorporate some of the parts into a new build.

 

[EmileS]

I'll start off the build with what you do need:

CPU: Depending on your budget, we can go lower or higher (obviously). Intel i3-4130

Mobo: MSI H81M-P32, LGA1150
Forum member response: "But, EmileS, there is the H81M-P33 for cheaper??"... EmileS response: "Yes [enter member name], but the P32 has something that all motherboards should have by now, which the P33 doesn't... A front USB3.0 header!"

RAM: Depending on what size you want..
4GB: Corsair CMV4GX3M1A1600C11, Value Select, 4GB, DDR3-1600
8GB: G.Skill RipjawsX, 8GB (2x 4GB) kit, DDR3-1600, CL9, 1.5v
Forum member response: "But, EmileS, why the hell must he get 'Gaming RAM', he'll see no performance increase with gaming RAM, he just needs normal Value RAM?! You noob you!"... EmileS response: "I agree with you... He doesn't need gaming RAM... But, go look at the prices... 8GB kits value RAM cost exactly the same (and sometimes more) than this gaming RAM!!! Yes...."

 

[cerebus]

You do need to upgrade that PC. It's far over the hill. Sell it for whatever you can get and use the money to add into a new set of hardware. It's all about what you can afford of course.

 

[km2]

Guys, this is a 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo with 4GB of RAM and an SSD that is struggling to do basic internet browsing at a decent speed. That is not normal. I have a high end 2.6GHz quad core i7 laptop, a quad core 2.8Ghz (admittedly old) i7 desktop, and a number of Core 2 Duo machines of the 2.2-2.4GHz range and frankly for browsing there is negligible difference in performance. If it feels slow there's probably something wrong.

When you're browsing and it starts feeling slow and you close the browser, what's the kind of usage that the CPU idles at? I'm wondering if maybe there's something with the fan or something thermally that's could be causing it to throttle.

You're also mention a lot of internet related things, could you describe the kind of slowness that you have? Is Youtube playback choppy? Does it take a long time to get going? Does it play smoothly when playback happens?

 

[topographical]

I'll start off the build with what you do need:

CPU: Depending on your budget, we can go lower or higher (obviously). Intel i3-4130

Mobo: MSI H81M-P32, LGA1150
Forum member response: "But, EmileS, there is the H81M-P33 for cheaper??"... EmileS response: "Yes [enter member name], but the P32 has something that all motherboards should have by now, which the P33 doesn't... A front USB3.0 header!"

RAM: Depending on what size you want..
4GB: Corsair CMV4GX3M1A1600C11, Value Select, 4GB, DDR3-1600
8GB: G.Skill RipjawsX, 8GB (2x 4GB) kit, DDR3-1600, CL9, 1.5v
Forum member response: "But, EmileS, why the hell must he get 'Gaming RAM', he'll see no performance increase with gaming RAM, he just needs normal Value RAM?! You noob you!"... EmileS response: "I agree with you... He doesn't need gaming RAM... But, go look at the prices... 8GB kits value RAM cost exactly the same (and sometimes more) than this gaming RAM!!! Yes...."

Thanks again. I'm really not sure what PC's fetch for these days but I am a student so budget is limited. Really just a PC that will be as fast as possible for all the basic things and will last for a good few years.

 

[Necuno]

- Upgrade to Windows 8.1 (for me, it gave new life to a really old PC and laptop)
.

ilolled

 

[killadoob]

Thanks for all the helpful responses.




Very simple things really. Browsing and a decent amount of media (youtube, netflix etc).




Nope, I'm on 64 bit.

I guess the most logical step to take from here would be asking what the cheapest PC I could build that would blaze for everyday tasks and multitasking?

You don't need a new pc bro, you need a ssd and maybe some more ram. You pc is more than adequate for what you want. A ssd will give you more speed than the latest intel cpu.

Don't buy a new pc, buy a ssd and you will be fine.

 

[Necuno]

Don't buy a new pc, buy a ssd and you will be fine.

Unless the mobo is sata3 the sdd is only going to be half as good as it should be.

 

[killadoob]

Unless the mobo is sata3 the sdd is only going to be half as good as it should be.

You are getting confused. Sata 2 and 3: Write/read low(if you can 250mb/r/w low) on sata 2, sata 3 they are higher.

The speed of the ssd is the seek time, sata 2 or 3 will still give you a 0.1 or lower seek time. Most people don't need more than 200mb/r/w anyways so sata 2 does not mean your drive will seek files slower. Many people confused ssd speed with r/w and don't realize the ssd excels because of the seek time.

 

[Necuno]

You are getting confused.

I'm not confused, its not as good as it should be on sata2 compared to sata3. On my old box I upgraded to a new gpu, then sdd and finally I got a new cpu and a m/b that is sata3 (500 MBs R/W as advertised):

View attachment 81407

:edit
I/O and performance issues in TSW was only solved after all three things were in place and not just "more ram" or "sdd" alone.

 

[Necuno]

...had to dig for this picture:

on the left one of my SATA drive compared to the two and the right which is my SDD using SATA 2. (I can't however remember the difference between those two):

 

[killadoob]

There are two aspects to ssds. Read and write speed and the time is takes to access your data. Sata 2 compared to sata is not slower at accessing data. The higher read write speeds are needed by some people but for most people sata 2 speeds will do just fine.

Typically, SSDs are around 200MB/s read, and 100-150MB/s write. Modern hard drives are around 120MB/s for both. This tells you how quickly it can read or write a file once it has started.

Access times on an SSD are around 0.05-0.5 ms. Hard drives range from 5-20ms (most 7200rpm desktop drives are around 12-14ms). This tells you how long it takes to find a file. This is where SSDs have a huge advantage.