Basic question about processor speeds

Hi all,

I currently have Dell Dimension 3000 PC with Pentium 4 processor (2.8GHz)
256MB of RAM. It is 2-3 years old.

It is used for email, internet access, music downloads, photo storage and
editing etc. It is becoming a little slow when accessing photo files etc.

I am looking for an upgrade but when I look at the Dell site, the
replacements are showing either -

Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core E2140 Processor (1.6GHz,800MHz,1MB cache)

Intel® ViivT CoreT 2 Duo E4500 Processor (2.20GHz,800MHz,2MB cache)

The processor speed is lower than my existing one (although I understand
that the "dual" part means there are two processors in operation).

My question is - how much better speed and performance am I likely to get
from these upgraded models over my existing one?

Thanks in advance for any advice!!

On Nov 8, 12:46 pm, "Lorenzo" wrote:
Hi all,

I currently have Dell Dimension 3000 PC with Pentium 4 processor (2.8GHz)
256MB of RAM. It is 2-3 years old.

It is used for email, internet access, music downloads, photo storage and
editing etc. It is becoming a little slow when accessing photo files etc.

I am looking for an upgrade but when I look at the Dell site, the
replacements are showing either -

Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core E2140 Processor (1.6GHz,800MHz,1MB cache)

Intel® ViivT CoreT 2 Duo E4500 Processor (2.20GHz,800MHz,2MB cache)

The processor speed is lower than my existing one (although I understand
that the "dual" part means there are two processors in operation).

My question is - how much better speed and performance am I likely to get
from these upgraded models over my existing one?

I think the main improvement in a new machine that you'd see would be
due to more memory. 256M is not much these days and is probably
causing the bottleneck. In fact, if it were me, I'd be inclined just
to buy more memory for the existing box, make it at least a gig or so,
rather than starting over. It should be less than $100 USD.

"Lorenzo" wrote in message
. uk...
Hi all,

I currently have Dell Dimension 3000 PC with Pentium 4 processor (2.8GHz)
256MB of RAM. It is 2-3 years old.

It is used for email, internet access, music downloads, photo storage and
editing etc. It is becoming a little slow when accessing photo files etc.

I am looking for an upgrade but when I look at the Dell site, the
replacements are showing either -

Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core E2140 Processor (1.6GHz,800MHz,1MB cache)

Intel® ViivT CoreT 2 Duo E4500 Processor (2.20GHz,800MHz,2MB cache)

The processor speed is lower than my existing one (although I understand
that the "dual" part means there are two processors in operation).

My question is - how much better speed and performance am I likely to get
from these upgraded models over my existing one?

Thanks in advance for any advice!!



Even a single core of the E4500 is much faster than your P4. The Core 2
Duo does more instructions per CPU cycle than the P4, the plain dual
core does not, so the E4500 is the way to go. The E6xxx series has
4 MB cache and higher FSB.

"Lorenzo" wrote in message
. uk...
Hi all,

I currently have Dell Dimension 3000 PC with Pentium 4 processor (2.8GHz)
256MB of RAM. It is 2-3 years old.

It is used for email, internet access, music downloads, photo storage and
editing etc. It is becoming a little slow when accessing photo files etc.

I am looking for an upgrade but when I look at the Dell site, the
replacements are showing either -

Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core E2140 Processor (1.6GHz,800MHz,1MB cache)

Intel® ViivT CoreT 2 Duo E4500 Processor (2.20GHz,800MHz,2MB cache)

The processor speed is lower than my existing one (although I understand
that the "dual" part means there are two processors in operation).

My question is - how much better speed and performance am I likely to get
from these upgraded models over my existing one?

You'd get a PC that can wait faster.

Your PC may be a bit low on memory, but fine otherwise.

It's more likely slow due to the amount of stuff that's collected in the
machine over time. I'm also going to take a stab and say that you've got
some Norton/Symantec software installed.

Noozer wrote:
"Lorenzo" wrote in message
. uk...

Hi all,

I currently have Dell Dimension 3000 PC with Pentium 4 processor (2.8GHz)
256MB of RAM. It is 2-3 years old.

It is used for email, internet access, music downloads, photo storage and
editing etc. It is becoming a little slow when accessing photo files etc.

I am looking for an upgrade but when I look at the Dell site, the
replacements are showing either -

Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core E2140 Processor (1.6GHz,800MHz,1MB cache)

Intel® ViivT CoreT 2 Duo E4500 Processor (2.20GHz,800MHz,2MB cache)

The processor speed is lower than my existing one (although I understand
that the "dual" part means there are two processors in operation).

My question is - how much better speed and performance am I likely to get
from these upgraded models over my existing one?

You'd get a PC that can wait faster.

Your PC may be a bit low on memory, but fine otherwise.

It's more likely slow due to the amount of stuff that's collected in the
machine over time. I'm also going to take a stab and say that you've got
some Norton/Symantec software installed.

Yeah, pretty much has to be a software problem, not hardware.
Even an early P3 running 98 can do that and much more without
slowing up. Computers slowing down is in most cases down to
software issues.


NT

I'm also going to take a stab and say that you've got some Norton/Symantec
software installed.

I good stab, but not so. I removed Norton some time ago because it really
WAS getting slow. I changed to McAfee which does have a constant background
(On Access) scan but showed a big improvement.

There is not too much clutter on the machine (I have just added the basic
stuff I need). The "system idle process" in the task manager shows at
90-95% of the CPU when idle so there is nothing much churning away in the
background.

It is not slow in the "hanging around for ages" sense, it is just now as
responsive. I have got into the habit of replacing the PC every 3 years and
every time there has been a big improvement. Maybe things are not improving
at the same rate these days, so I can keep hold of it for a bit longer.

Many thanks for all the replies!

On Thu, 8 Nov 2007 20:28:26 -0500, "Ian D"
wrote:


"Lorenzo" wrote in message
.uk...
Hi all,

I currently have Dell Dimension 3000 PC with Pentium 4 processor (2.8GHz)
256MB of RAM. It is 2-3 years old.

It is used for email, internet access, music downloads, photo storage and
editing etc. It is becoming a little slow when accessing photo files etc.

I am looking for an upgrade but when I look at the Dell site, the
replacements are showing either -

Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core E2140 Processor (1.6GHz,800MHz,1MB cache)

Intel® ViivT CoreT 2 Duo E4500 Processor (2.20GHz,800MHz,2MB cache)

The processor speed is lower than my existing one (although I understand
that the "dual" part means there are two processors in operation).

My question is - how much better speed and performance am I likely to get
from these upgraded models over my existing one?

Thanks in advance for any advice!!



Even a single core of the E4500 is much faster than your P4. The Core 2
Duo does more instructions per CPU cycle than the P4, the plain dual
core does not, so the E4500 is the way to go. The E6xxx series has
4 MB cache and higher FSB.


While it is true that a complete motherboard, CPU, and
memory upgrade would have significant performance benefit,
when one is dealing with an OEM box it is also a factor that
even the OS is no longer licensed so tack on an addt'l $100,
plus all the time to reinstall and reconfigure unless OP is
savvy enough to be able to get Windows to re-plug-n-play,
which is definitely possible but beyond what most are
willing to do as it seems most don't Google each step of a
process (which in itself is also a further time investment
and in some cases, the performance problem wasn't even the
hardware it was just a bloated Windows installation that
could use being leaned up a bit by starting over. YMMV.

wrote in message
oups.com...
On Nov 8, 12:46 pm, "Lorenzo" wrote:
Hi all,

I currently have Dell Dimension 3000 PC with Pentium 4 processor (2.8GHz)
256MB of RAM. It is 2-3 years old.

It is used for email, internet access, music downloads, photo storage and
editing etc. It is becoming a little slow when accessing photo files etc.

I am looking for an upgrade but when I look at the Dell site, the
replacements are showing either -

Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core E2140 Processor (1.6GHz,800MHz,1MB cache)

Intel® ViivT CoreT 2 Duo E4500 Processor (2.20GHz,800MHz,2MB cache)

The processor speed is lower than my existing one (although I understand
that the "dual" part means there are two processors in operation).

My question is - how much better speed and performance am I likely to get
from these upgraded models over my existing one?

I think the main improvement in a new machine that you'd see would be
due to more memory. 256M is not much these days and is probably
causing the bottleneck. In fact, if it were me, I'd be inclined just
to buy more memory for the existing box, make it at least a gig or so,
rather than starting over. It should be less than $100 USD.

I agree with Mr. Blurt (surely can't be his real name) that memory is your
main problem.
A 2.8ghz CPU is ample for the uses you describe but 256mb of RAM is not -
not by a long chalk.
Put in 1gb and your PC will feel like a whole new machine. Win XP uses
around 120mb just to boot up then add a photo application like Photoshop and
you already run out of RAM and are using virtual memory - access a photo and
the HDD will be constantly active and the PC will chugg along like an
asthmatic.

"Lorenzo" wrote in message
. uk...
Hi all,

I currently have Dell Dimension 3000 PC with Pentium 4 processor (2.8GHz)
256MB of RAM. It is 2-3 years old.

It is used for email, internet access, music downloads, photo storage and
editing etc. It is becoming a little slow when accessing photo files etc.

If it is becoming slow, then that suggests that you used to be happy with
its speed, so something is causing it to slow down. Everyone has suggested
more memory and I would strongle agree. The Dell Dimension 3000 used to ship
with 128MB of memory in 1 slot and 1 empty slot, so I assume that you have
upgraded this at some point by adding another 128MB in the second slot. I
would suggest removing one of you 128MB DIMMs and inserting a 1GB DIMM,
which you could pick up for around £50. You could even invest in 2GB, but
probably won't need that much extra.

Another thing that is probably slowing down over time is your hard disk. As
the drive fills up and becomes more and more fragmented, it will slow down.
With only 256MB RAM, your system will also be using the windows swap file
quite a lot, so this means more disk access, slowing everything down. More
memory would naturally speed this area of the system up immediately. Also
your windows registry (a file on the hard disk) will probably have become
bloated and fragmented, so I would suggest clearing a bit of space on your
hard disk, (maybe even consider a second or external drive) and get the
drive defragmented. You should also consider a windows optimizer tool to
clean up your registry - run this once in a while, then uninstall it again!

I am looking for an upgrade but when I look at the Dell site, the
replacements are showing either -

Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core E2140 Processor (1.6GHz,800MHz,1MB cache)

Intel® ViivT CoreT 2 Duo E4500 Processor (2.20GHz,800MHz,2MB cache)

The processor speed is lower than my existing one (although I understand
that the "dual" part means there are two processors in operation).

My question is - how much better speed and performance am I likely to get
from these upgraded models over my existing one?

Thanks in advance for any advice!!

"Lorenzo" wrote in message
.uk...
I'm also going to take a stab and say that you've got some
Norton/Symantec software installed.

I good stab, but not so. I removed Norton some time ago because it really
WAS getting slow. I changed to McAfee which does have a constant
background (On Access) scan but showed a big improvement.

There is not too much clutter on the machine (I have just added the basic
stuff I need). The "system idle process" in the task manager shows at
90-95% of the CPU when idle so there is nothing much churning away in the
background.

It is not slow in the "hanging around for ages" sense, it is just now as
responsive. I have got into the habit of replacing the PC every 3 years
and every time there has been a big improvement. Maybe things are not
improving at the same rate these days, so I can keep hold of it for a bit
longer.

I would be tempted to hold off. While the dual core processors are faster
than their predecessors, the speed improvement is not all that noticable.
The improvement you get from new machine is more than just the CPU. The hard
disk will be significantly large, faster and quieter. You will get much more
RAM, which makes everything smoother and less reliant on swapfiles. You
would get faster memory which generally speeds everything up. However, I
don't think you would see a massive speed increase over what you have now.
Just stick more memory in to what you have and clean the hard disk (defrag +
optimize registry).