Ideal spec for web browsing.

BringTheRain

BringTheRain

BringTheRain

Soldato
Joined
3 Jan 2009
Posts
5,593
Location
Bedfordshire
Hi guys.

What sort of spec should I be looking at for web browsing, watching you tube, excel docs and word.

Currently have.

E6600
2GB Ram
500 Sata HD
Cheapo GPU

I am running windows 7 64 bit and done a fresh format. But this thing is slow. Once I have a few open windows, listen to music or watch films. The whole pc just slows down.

If I open I tunes then that makes it even worse.

It is just slow.

I want to upgrade. So what should I be looking at.

i3,5,7?

Amd quads?

More ram

SSD?

Loading the computer takes a good min or so before it's even useable.

Any help would be appreciated :)
 
To be honest, an SSD, another 2GB of RAM and perhaps a half-decent GPU (to hardware accelerate youtube) would make it a lean, mean web browsing machine.

I would go with this SSD and this GPU. May I ask what the makes and model numbers of you current motherboard and RAM are?
 
stulid said:
More RAM and a SSD? get scouring the members market:D
Click to expand...

Deffo don't want a second hand miss mash comp bud. The mobo is ancient, and getting ram to work is a pain.

I would like to build a new one, but use my gpu, psu and dvd rw. As they are all well known brands and less than a year old :)
 
cmndr_andi said:
To be honest, an SSD, another 2GB of RAM and perhaps a half-decent GPU (to hardware accelerate youtube) would make it a lean, mean web browsing machine.

I would go with this SSD and this GPU. May I ask what the makes and model numbers of you current motherboard and RAM are?
Click to expand...

Mobo is a conroe asrock (i know ;) ) Ram is samsung DDR2 mega slow like 667 speed
 
yashiro said:
Slow compared to what?
Click to expand...

Compared to how it used to run say urmmmmmm on vista. Vista was rubbish, or so people said. But i could have loads of windows open, listen to music, type on word, have i tunes syncing etc etc And pc was very useable.

Using my i phone is easier and quicker!
 
Aye, it may seem really slow but for the uses you mention I bet you most of the bottleneck is the hard drive.

Last year I dusted off my Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM Dell laptop since my main desktop was out of action (this laptop is a core 2 duo upgrade, it came with a Core Duo initially - it has SATA 1 ports). I had to use it for all the uses you mention (mainly web stuff and creating documents) and hook it up to a 1200p screen. As you can imagine it was very slow. So what I did was used the new SSD I planned to use on my desktop and installed it in the laptop (as a temporary arrangement) and I swear - in these task it felt just as fast as my desktop. As I now realise - for these applications the mechanical hard drive is a huge bottleneck, with an SSD this limitation is removed and even the relatively old hardware (core 2 duo, 4GB RAM, SATA1 ports) can easily handle these applications (even with loads of browser tabs).

So my suggestion would be to invest in the SSD initially and don't buy anything else (so you aren't buying any "old" kit) and see how you find your system. If you still feel you need more speed then you can always replace the cpu/mobo/ram and keep the SSD.
 
Okay cool, so if i go for an SSD. Do these wear out, as i have seen health reports in the 2nd section. For example SSD has like 96% health

OR has all that been fixed. Never ever read up on SSD's as when i was looking they were like £500 for like 30GB lol

I would use the SSD for everything and then a sata HD for storing pics and videos?

And files i use everyday, go onto the SSD?
 
BringTheRain said:
Okay cool, so if i go for an SSD. Do these wear out, as i have seen health reports in the 2nd section. For example SSD has like 96% health

OR has all that been fixed. Never ever read up on SSD's as when i was looking they were like £500 for like 30GB lol

I would use the SSD for everything and then a sata HD for storing pics and videos?

And files i use everyday, go onto the SSD?
Click to expand...

Don't worry about the health of the SSD, so long as you are running Windows 7 (which includes the TRIM command to do garbage collection and preserve the speed) and don't do excessive benchmarking of the drive then it should last many years (at least as long as a mechanical HDD).

As for how to set it up, install windows and your applications on the SSD - this will mean windows boots up quicky and all of your applications are very responsive. Installing your videos, pics on the mechanical HDD will be fine.
 
Aye, standard SATA power and data connections.

Your motherboard may only be SATA1, but the massive performance increase due to much lower response times (0.1ms vs 10ms) and much faster random read/write speeds (~100x) will still occur.
 
something must be wrong with ur pc then, i just built a cheap pc with a e6300 & 2gb's ram and its fine with windows 7 and multitasking.

but as others have said ssd's make a hell of a difference to loading times. Im hoping to get a bigger one because 40gb is just useless!
 
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