A friend of mine bought an HP small for factor PC in late 2008. She has had notihig but problems with it being slow.
Basic components:
Intel Q6600 2.4ghz
4 gb DDR SDR RAM 800mz
1 serial ATA 250gb HD (a few external for storage)
integrated video card Intel GMA 3100
240 Watt power supply
Windows 7 32bit
Her PC habits are having lots of browser windows open while also working mostly in photoshop and/or illustrator.
Her problems are lots of "please wait" and/or "not responding" when working, searching for files, etc.
I have wiped her hardrive and reloaded windows several times which results in very minor speed improvements. I have also turned off someof the windows 7 features that can slow the PC down. My guess is the power supply has something to do with it but it is a small form factor case so there's not much I can do to fix that.
She now wants a new PC but I can gut her old PC for DVD burner, RAM, etc but not sure where I should stop. I think she can spend about $400-500. My main question is if I should use her old Q6600 or get a lower end combo like one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Store/ComboDeals.aspx?ComboStoreID=1&name=CPUs-Motherboards&Page=2
AMD FX or AMD a10
I did a basic benchmark check and either of these seem to be faster than the Q6600, but I have been out of the PC loop for awhile so I would appreciate any help.
Also, with Photoshops new Mercury engine, it uses video cards to make things fast so I am looking into one of those too. A radeon with 1 gb memory and 256-bit engine seems to be ideal
any thoughts there?
Thanks!
Basic components:
Intel Q6600 2.4ghz
4 gb DDR SDR RAM 800mz
1 serial ATA 250gb HD (a few external for storage)
integrated video card Intel GMA 3100
240 Watt power supply
Windows 7 32bit
Her PC habits are having lots of browser windows open while also working mostly in photoshop and/or illustrator.
Her problems are lots of "please wait" and/or "not responding" when working, searching for files, etc.
I have wiped her hardrive and reloaded windows several times which results in very minor speed improvements. I have also turned off someof the windows 7 features that can slow the PC down. My guess is the power supply has something to do with it but it is a small form factor case so there's not much I can do to fix that.
She now wants a new PC but I can gut her old PC for DVD burner, RAM, etc but not sure where I should stop. I think she can spend about $400-500. My main question is if I should use her old Q6600 or get a lower end combo like one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Store/ComboDeals.aspx?ComboStoreID=1&name=CPUs-Motherboards&Page=2
AMD FX or AMD a10
I did a basic benchmark check and either of these seem to be faster than the Q6600, but I have been out of the PC loop for awhile so I would appreciate any help.
Also, with Photoshops new Mercury engine, it uses video cards to make things fast so I am looking into one of those too. A radeon with 1 gb memory and 256-bit engine seems to be ideal
any thoughts there?
Thanks!