18th February 2017
How Much Speed Is Enough
After last weeks’ article about the latest 7th generation Intel CPU’s I had several people asking us the benchmark rating on our computers. Our base desktop PC has a 7th generation Intel Pentium G4560 CPU which has a benchmark rating of 5,094. This is what we recommend as a minimum for a desktop PC and from here we go to the Intel i3, i5 and i7 CPU’s with power ratings up to 11,000.
With laptops our minimum power laptop uses one of Intel’s mobile i3 CPU’s to produce a performance benchmark of 2,923 – which is still 3.5 times more powerful than the cheapest desktop computer from last weeks’ article. Also some customers asked – “why buy the more powerful ones – what does it mean for me”?
It is interesting that some of the real budget desktops and laptops around today have CPU’s that are no more powerful than ‘average to good’ PC’s from around 5 years ago! How has this come about? It seems that in an effort to grab bigger slices of the PC market all manufacturers are using CPU’s that were really only designed for smart phone and tablets in their desktop and laptop computers to cut prices.
Smart phones and tablets normally run simple operating systems like Android and Windows CE that aren’t nearly as comprehensive as the likes of Windows 7, 8 and 10. Because of their simplicity smart phones and tablets operate very well with lower power CPU – which also cost less than the more powerful ones. However, if you put these lower power CPU’s into a modern laptop or desktop then they run very slow.
This slowness makes all the difference to how a desktop or laptop operates and it not only causes frustration but it can also cause errors when you double click on an application that is already starting because you don’t see any apparent activity. There are also many databases like accounting programs and email programs that can easily corrupt when they experience longer than normal delays because of slow hardware.
The other thing to consider is longevity. We see budget PC’s brought into our shop with viruses or failing hard drives when they are just 18 months old and it is sometimes debatable whether these are worth fixing. On the other hand, when we see the same problems in an average to good PC that is even 3 years old there is often good cause to repair it as these models can still have a useful life left.
Every PC user has to make a decision as to whether they can afford to skimp on the purchase of a new PC or whether they need it to perform well for a number of years. When it comes to the use of computers for business then there is even more sway to the buy better debate as you are paying someone to sit in front of this machine and be productive.
Future Byte Me topics can be emailed to [email protected] and Bruce is contactable at Kerr Solutions, 205 Musgrave Street or on 49 222 400.
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