Current Spec PC's Core 2 Duo / Quad or I5/I7

[ecjohnston2010]

Hi

i'm upgrading my office pc and requiring something stable. I'm amass of all the products out today as it's been 3 years since my last upgrade.

Core2Duo/Quad/I5/I7 what's the diff / what's better - and most importantly what's the most stable.

7200rpmHD or 10000rpmHD? I'm after quicker load times etc - is there a difference between the two - or is the 10000rpm a little more unstable?
Ram: DDR2 or DDR3? I'll be using win7ult64b and wanting at least 6GB.

I'm a graphic Professional - so yeah it's just one of those things I have no idea on where to go.

Can I get some ideas - do have a budget however.

Thanks

 

[gkay09]

This would help get more responses...
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261222-31-build-advice

Yes currently the i5/ i7s are better options than the C2Q/ C2D...

DDR3 is the way to go as they are nearly the same price as DDR2 and would be easily available later on as they are now replacing DDR2 in the mainstream segment...

Depending on your budget, you can also take a look into the SSDs...they would significantly reduce the load times of the apps but they still have some price premium...

 

[geofelt]

Hi

i'm upgrading my office pc and requiring something stable. I'm amass of all the products out today as it's been 3 years since my last upgrade.

Core2Duo/Quad/I5/I7 what's the diff / what's better - and most importantly what's the most stable.

7200rpmHD or 10000rpmHD? I'm after quicker load times etc - is there a difference between the two - or is the 10000rpm a little more unstable?
Ram: DDR2 or DDR3? I'll be using win7ult64b and wanting at least 6GB.

I'm a graphic Professional - so yeah it's just one of those things I have no idea on where to go.

Can I get some ideas - do have a budget however.

Thanks

I think any current cpu is very stable.

If your applications can take advantage of multiple cores, then the i7 quads are the way to go.

If 8gb will be the most that you want, then the lga1156 systems are good. They typically have only 4 ram slots.

If you mignt want 6gb or 12gb for photoshop, then the lga 1366 is better because they usually have 6 ram slots.

2gb sized sticks of DDR3 are reasonably priced. 4gb sticks cost double per gb today and are not cost effective.

7200rpm or 10,000 rpm has little bearing on data transfer rates. 10k drives will have lower seek times. Today, modern large(1tb) drives will transfer data as fast as the older 10k drives. The differences in performance among all of the modern conventional hard drives are relatively minor.

SSD's are a whole new ball game. They have almost NO seek time, and transfer rates are better than any conventional drives. Their price per gigabyte is high. If your capacity needs are in the 150gb range, then a SSD might be a good option. This arena is changing daily. SSD's are getting faster and cheaper. Research carefully.

Stability is not much of an issue with hardware. Most failures will be from software or user error. I think Windows-7 64 bit will be the best platform to build on, assuming all of your software will run on it.

 

[ecjohnston2010]

Hi thanks for the reply - what's SSD? As you can gather by that haven't built a computer in a long time

cheers

 

[geofelt]

Hi thanks for the reply - what's SSD? As you can gather by that haven't built a computer in a long time

cheers

SSD = Solid state drive.

Here is an example of one of the best:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167023