Newb question about CPU speed for a small business PC

[kdubbie]

Hey everyone, just want to say thanks for reading and bearing with me....

When it comes to performance of a small business computer, (meaning a lot of programs running at once, but no major programs) how much do I really need?

This is what I am debating on:

Intel Pentium E2200 Allendale 2.2GHz 1MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor

or

Intel Core 2 Duo E7300 Wolfdale 2.66GHz 3MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Dual-Core Processor

Obviously, I would really like the Wolfdale, but I also wouldn't mind saving the money....Do I really need the speed and performance of the Wolfdale for a PC only being used Word Processing, e-mail, and business apps.

I am also debating on these motherboards.

GIGABYTE GA-P31-ES3G LGA 775 Intel P31 ATX Intel Motherboard

or

Intel BOXDP35DPM LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard

Again, I'd much rather the faster of the two, but I really wouldn't mind saving the money.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a lot.

 

[chookman]

If thats all you are using it for then the E2200 will be plenty... The Gigabyte being the cheaper of the 2 would be a better choice also. Make sure you have plenty of RAM though... 4gb for 32bit and maybe a bit more for 64bit OS

 

[blackpanther26]

I think you should go with a celron DC it is less money and is based on Conroe core and is $20 cheaper.

 

[MRFS]

Believe it or not, the Celeron 430 is a re-branded Core 2
with a single core: we built a P35 machine last year
and installed a 430 initially in order to flash the BIOS
for upgrading to an E8400: the user was very impressed
with the performance of the 430 while it was in his machine.

Thus, 2 such low-end Core 2 processing cores would be plenty of
power for your routine office applications.

From my direct experience, I recommend moving your browser
cache into a ramdisk created using RamDisk Plus from
www.superspeed.com . This one cheap upgrade has
made a huge difference in our day-to-day Internet access here.

Firefox and Opera also permit moving the browser cache
to another drive letter; Google Chrome does not (yet), however.


Gosh, I did word processing and email on a 100 MHz Intel CPU
for 2 years, circa 1995-96.


MRFS

 

[MRFS]

I would also strongly suggest that you go with a better motherboard foundation
e.g. one with the G45 chipset, ICH10R I/O controller hub, and integrated graphics
such as the ASUS P5Q-EM:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131336


Your Gigabyte option has no on-board video, so you'll have to factor in the
cost of a PCI-E video card for that motherboard. Also, it has only 2 x DIMM slots.

With memory being so cheap right now, THE BEST thing you can do is to
bulk up on RAM: the P45 and G45 chipsets support 16GB of RAM,
and RamDisk Plus version 9 now uses unmanaged Windows memory
for ramdisks.

So, get a motherboard with 4 x DIMM slots, and start with 2 x 2GB DDR2-800:
there are plenty of good deals on the latter mainstream memory right now e.g.:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145184


MRFS

 

[cadder]

I don't think CPU horsepower is that important for the average business machine. I'm running a 3 year old CAD workstation with single core AMD processor, and it is plenty fast for most of what I do- running AutoCAD, Acrobat, Wordperfect, email at the same time.

However I think a dual core is probably worthwhile, maybe even a quadcore, because I find that if I am downloading, or copying files, or something like that it will drag down a single core machine to where it is hard to use it for anything else.

We have gotten into some new CAD apps such as Revit and engineering analysis add-ons to AutoCAD that really need a lot of CPU horsepower so my new workstation is an E8500 at 3.8GHz.

 

[joefriday]

I would recommend a single core CPU. That's what they are still here for: mundane office tasks and light duty day to day computing. For stability, compatibility and reliability, I would suggest an Intel chipset motherboard, preferably with integrated graphics. A G3x series should work well enough, and should be pretty cheap today. I would recommend 2GB of ram. That seems to be the most important aspect of a business computer, as it tends to get clogged up with a lot of background applications that eat up the ram.

 

[jsc]

I would recommend a single core CPU.

I must disagree with this. The lower end C2D's are cheap enough and multitasking - especially while printing - is very useful. I have HP printers at my work site, and a single core processor tends to lockup during print jobs.

 

[Godiwa]

for a business pc I would get the intel board instead of the gigabyte, but not the one listed.

intel has some very nifty mATX mobos with onboard graphics like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121355R

I take it an business machine would use a tft screen with either hdmi or dvi (this board supports both) it has lots of connectivity options and all you need to make it run is ram and cpu.

I would take one of the lower core2duos and not one of the older "fake" dual cores. So something like the E7200 o E7300 depending on which is the best deal.

Dump 2GB ram in atleast, or 4GB (again, ram is cheap and you avoid diskswapping) *note: you didn't mention which OS you would run, but if WinXP then 2GB atleast, and if Vista 4GB atleast.

Also, for a business pc the main issue is stability and quality, don't get the cheapest just because it is the cheapest, you want something that just keeps running.

 

[Koolaidman23]

I built 3 systems here at work after Thanksgiving with e5200 processors and Foxconn G33 mobos. I have heard nothing but praise from the users. Of course, before they were using Celeron D 340s (2.93 Ghz) on 865 boards, with 4200 rpm hard drives.

Right now on newegg, the e5200 is $84 and the e2200 is $70. Go with the e5200.

 

[AdioKIP]

First, completely disregard the person that said anything about going single core. Dont even consider that an option at this point.

I have a work laptop that I use for similiar tasks as yourself. Right now I am running Outlook, Excel, Word, IE, and MS Accesss all at once with one or two explorer windows to look at network drives and move files. This is all running perfectly fine on a Dual Core 1.8ghz processor with 1 gig of ram.... The best thing is going to be to go with the cheaper dual core but get as much ram as possible. Ram will help in your multi-tasking alot more then a faster dual core will vs a slower dual core.

 

[AdioKIP]

Sorry for the double post....

 

[AdioKIP]

Sorry for the triple post...

 

[joefriday]

AdioKIP, you do understand that having Word, Excel, IE, and MS Access all going at once doesn't actually test the CPU, right? That's much more of a ram issue. If only you're playing a heavy flash application in IE, opening a 1000 page document, and performing calculations on an extremely large excel file, could I see there being a processor bottleneck, but just having these programs open poses absolutely no problems for a single core CPU. Before 2005, people did those same activities and managed to get along just fine. I think the vast majority of people in this thread overestimate the processor's role in the overall computing experience. Sure, dual cores are pretty cheap today, so it's not a very large expense, but I'm just saying it's not even close to being necessary for a good office PC.