Windows 8 on old machine

Klunt Bumskrint · 4 Oct 2013 at 21:22

I built my son a pc out of bits I had lying around.

Would it benefit from Windows 8 or shall I just stick 7 on it?

Specs are as follows:

AMD x2 6400+

GTX 280

2Gb Ram

CaptainCrash · 4 Oct 2013 at 22:31

I have Win8 on an old laptop (AMD Sempron 3600+ , 2GB) and it runs fine. Obviously it's no speed demon, but for general web and office stuff it's perfectly usable.

Win7 has no performance advantages over 8 (if anything it's the reverse). You may prefer 7 for other reasons, but for the love of god let's not go there yet again, with the usual suspects parrotting their usual mantras to the point where you want to dig your eyeballs out with a spoon.

paradigm · 4 Oct 2013 at 23:25

CaptainCrash said:
but for the love of god let's not go there yet again, with the usual suspects parrotting their usual mantras to the point where you want to dig your eyeballs out with a spoon.

Well said. We'll not be letting this thread descend into the fires of hell like most other Windows 8 threads.

For what it's worth, I've had Windows 8 installed on some low-end Core Duo (not Core 2, just Core!) laptops, for testing, and they have all been perfectly responsive. In fact, from what I can tell, so long as you have 2GB+ RAM, and a dual-core CPU, both Windows 7 and 8 are perfectly usable.

malachi · 5 Oct 2013 at 01:08

Runs fine on mums P4 3.0 ghz with 1.5gb of ram.

KIA · 5 Oct 2013 at 11:07

No difference. Not worth coughing up for 8 if you have a legit copy of 7 ready to go.

Elevon · 5 Oct 2013 at 12:11

Klunt Bumskrint said:
I built my son a pc out of bits I had lying around.

Would it benefit from Windows 8 or shall I just stick 7 on it?

Specs are as follows:

AMD x2 6400+

GTX 280

2Gb Ram

I have an old PC with AMD 3800+ X2 CPU I use for backup that has Win8 on it and runs fine,speed wise probably no difference between Win7 and Win8 with 2GB of ram,it's down to really what he prefers,obviously one advantage of Win8 is Win8.1 is free for Win8 users in two weeks time and longer support over Win7,I could also point out better security too on 8/8.1 but end of the day it's down to what he prefers.

kfouwels · 5 Oct 2013 at 12:20

It's also worth noting that driver fetching is VASTLY improved over 7.
You'll still want to grab proper graphics drivers, but bar that everything else will generally "just work" plug-and-play style direct from the base install.

No need to spend half an hour trying to find drivers for that obscure piece of hardware you found in a box somewhere. (looking at you wifi adapters...)