Ok computer guys

Terryl

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OK...I have a customer with a Inspiron 3847 PC that wants it to go faster,(I think he wants to play games on it) I have upped the ram to 16 GB, and replaced the hard drive with an SSD drive, I have also added a new graphics card with HDMI output.

It does go quite a bit faster, (I'd say ten times better with the SSD) now for the question, it only has a standard Pentium dual core CPU in it, the spec's say the motherboard can take an i3, i5 or an i7 CPU as a replacement, would I get a big improvement if I up it to an i5????

Wanting to know as I don't want to go overboard with the costs.

Any opinions???
 

Channel Hopper

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What is the current operating system ?
 

Terryl

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Channel Hopper

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Installing Win8.1 should give it a boost.

Why not sell him a PS4 for the games ?
 

Terryl

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If I was going to back pedal on the OS I would go with W7 ultimate, but he wants an OS that is supported.
 

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Yes, why I did not mention Win7 (though two of the office machines here will continue with it for a while yet).
 

PaulR

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Some ambulances in the UK are still running Windows XP six years after MS ceased their support for it.

 
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Sleepingwiththefish

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I think he wants to play games on it
What graphics card you installed?

For gaming the only option is Windows 10 for full DX12 support for current games, but that depends on what graphics card you have put on.
If it's not really a dedicated gaming card and it can only run games at very low resolution, then a new faster CPU won't help much for playing games, not to speak you would probably need to replace PSU to feed a more power hungry new CPU/GPU. Obviously, a new i5/7 would give much more raw performance, that doesn't mean the computer will actually 'feel' faster.

For the average daily usage (work stuff and internet), that would be a good 'fast enough' PC running Linux. Had setup Linux systems + SSD drives in quite a few old PCs and they gain a new life. Can't even tell that they have a very old and slow CPU.
 

Terryl

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Looking at the "About" info he has an Nvidia GTX 1650 Super installed, he installed it not me, I guess that's all he could afford at the time.(no new stimulus checks yet)

And going with a Thermaltake 700 watt PSU when it gets here.(sometime today)

I tried to talk him into getting a dedicated computer for gaming but he wants to use this one as it has a lot of other programs on it that cant be transfered to a new one.
 
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Sleepingwiththefish

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GPU is alright then, GTX 1650/1660 delivers good gaming performance with low consumption/cost, should give decent 1080p performance for most games, also that PSU should be good enough, then he needs a better CPU, a decent (fast high freq) 4 core CPU or ideally 6 cores. (Even with 'only' 4 cores Intel has some 4C CPUs that perform very well in gaming)

What socket? LGA1151?
 

Terryl

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It will fit a 4th gen Intel i3, i5, i7 LGA 1150 CPU as an upgrade.
 
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Sleepingwiththefish

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For best performance, Intel Core i7-9700K 8C, but this one probably too much $ and overkill, also Intel Core i7 i7-4790K 4C/8T, very good

Cheaper, Intel Core i5-4690K, also more modest Intel Core i5-4570 / others, but don't bother with i3 or other dual core, also avoid 4 cores below 3GHz, it's not recommended, will bottleneck the GPU in most games.

Finding one of these may be hard (over here, only in used condition and probably fried!)
 

Terryl

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OK thanks, I will look around and see what I come up with, and run it by him.
 
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