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Is my processor okay for typical usage?

G

Gary King

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 9, 2004
Messages
313
On this PC, I just normally do some typical stuff and occasionally play games.

Is the CPU okay for a PC like this? It's about 3 years old now. Basically, I just do stuff like have MS Word and Excel, and Trillian and BitTorrent open up at the same time and CPU sometimes spikes to 100%. Could my CPU be the problem, or is it possibly software related instead?

Specs: http://www.pcpitstop.com/techexpress.asp?id=Y4MEMW4BNSQSBPB6
 
For what basic stuff you use it for it is more than adequate. Obiviously it is not a brand new super gaming computer that alot of people around here would like to see but it is a clean-cut respectable home pc. (keyword home pc) The P4 in it is weak by todays P4 processors that are available but not useless by any means.

Hell, a five year old PentiumII400MHz or Pentium III-500/550 would run the same basic stuff as you use it for just as efficient. Not faster just as efficient. I remember using my Pentium III-550MHz in my old Abit BE6 440BX based board with 256MB ram, 13.6GB Harddrive & Windows 2000, Video was Matrox G400-MAX w/Voodoo2. Ran like a champ, played DVD's flawlessly, any typical office application would run smoothly.

You just don't need a high-end computer with the latest gear to use for basic interneting and home apps. A 486-DX2 with 16MB RAM & Windows95/ 98 properly configured for braodband would still perform nicely as a web surfing machine. I'm not saying I would want that setup but it proves you don't need a 3-4GHz processor to surf the web & type when you could get it done at a mere 60~100MHz. If you need to run realtime video encoding software, autocad, bryce or any brand spankin new intensive 3d games then you might need a bit more in memory, video, & cpu performance.

Remember any computer can be tweaked to run efficiently as a newer one by means of software & services. In the end you can only maximize the hardwares performance under the hood & unless something needs more processing power than what is currently available in a given computer then there is no need to upgrade it except for bragging rights or wasting cash.

Find a purpose 1st that justifies more performance than spend accordingly.

Anyways, if you had to ask on this forum you are probably just concerned with all the rumors of emerging technology & debating whether or not to make the push to a newer system. I say no, wait another year if you really just have to do it. By then the newer emerging tech. will be maturing, 64bit will be more prevalent & Microsofts next big operating system will most likely debut on this technology. If you need to install something that requires more than what your pc is capable of than sure upgrade now but affordably for what you need it to do. .My 2 cents worth.

To your question, sounds like software or services hogging up the cpu time. A faster cpu would get 100% time too with same configuration. You need to troubleshoot the running or "hung" apps Sometimes software really cruches at 100% and usinf a faster cpu would still crunch at 100% but for not as long as a slower cpu.
 
feelx77 said:
You just don't need a high-end computer with the latest gear to use for basic interneting and home apps. A 486-DX2 with 16MB RAM & Windows95/ 98 properly configured for braodband would still perform nicely as a web surfing machine.
Click to expand...

Actually, being the proud owner of a 486dx2-80 with 20 mb memory and running Windows 98SE, I put that theory to the test a while ago... I installed Maxthon on it (the up-to-date IE-wrapping browser that I normally use) and started browsing... You'd be amazed how slow most software really is these days... If you don't turn off Maxthon's skinning, it takes a few seconds to just open a menu. Even on my Pentium Pro 200, it's not all that flashy.
Anyway, even using bare IE on the 486 wasn't all that fast... Most pages use a lot of fancy tricks these days, like css, tables, lots of images, javascript, flash etc... and all that stuff just doesn't work very well on such old machines.
Even the PPro 200 doesn't give a very smooth websurfing performance... It's bearable, but not great. I'd say you'd need about a PII-300 or so, then you'll notice little or no difference browsing today's web, compared to today's machines... but in a few years, even that may not be enough.
Ironically enough I run a webserver on an old P150 machine quite successfully... so apparently you need a faster machine to browse the pages than to serve them... That sort of confuses my idea of server and client machines :)
 
Scali said:
Actually, being the proud owner of a 486dx2-80 with 20 mb memory and running Windows 98SE, I put that theory to the test a while ago... I installed Maxthon on it (the up-to-date IE-wrapping browser that I normally use) and started browsing... You'd be amazed how slow most software really is these days... If you don't turn off Maxthon's skinning, it takes a few seconds to just open a menu. Even on my Pentium Pro 200, it's not all that flashy.
Anyway, even using bare IE on the 486 wasn't all that fast... Most pages use a lot of fancy tricks these days, like css, tables, lots of images, javascript, flash etc... and all that stuff just doesn't work very well on such old machines.
Even the PPro 200 doesn't give a very smooth websurfing performance... It's bearable, but not great. I'd say you'd need about a PII-300 or so, then you'll notice little or no difference browsing today's web, compared to today's machines... but in a few years, even that may not be enough.
Ironically enough I run a webserver on an old P150 machine quite successfully... so apparently you need a faster machine to browse the pages than to serve them... That sort of confuses my idea of server and client machines :)
Click to expand...
It's not a popular web server is it? You'd give it a heart attack! :eek:
 
Gary King said:
It's not a popular web server is it? You'd give it a heart attack! :eek:
Click to expand...

Well no, but I can imagine a nice P150 cluster serving a big website :)
 
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