I am shopping for a new computer to replace an old desktop that I primarily use for web browsing, streaming (video and music) and a little bit of writing. No real gaming or anything.
I am looking at two units with similar specs, but with a few major differences.
Unit 1 has 16GB DDR4 RAM (max capacity 32GB), 512GB SSD and a 8th Gen Intel Core i5 dual-core processor.
Unit 2 has 8GB DDR4 RAM (max capacity 8GB), 16GB Optane Memory + 1TB SATA HD and a 8th Gen Intel Core i7 quad-core processor.
I don’t know a lot about Optane memory, and I don’t know if Optane+SATA is better than SSD (or if I’d even notice.) My main question is whether the faster processor in Unit 2 will give me more benefit that the extra RAM in Unit 1.
I think these days memory is almost certainly more important than processor for most applications.
Also, the SSD itself speeds up a lot of things.
On the other hand, with the various caching/hyper/routing/predictive technologies included in computers these days it’s nearly impossible to say from any raw numbers which configuration is going to give you a better real experience.
To the Optane memory question, it looks to me like that is a buffer for the 1TB SATA, so when you are writing a file to the drive, it immediately gets stored into the 16GB Optane memory (very fast), then as resources become available, the data get written to the 1TB SATA drive.
For my perspective, the 8GB MAX on unit 2 is concerning, especially if you are going to keep the system for the next 5 years.
The 16gb memory and the 512 SSD, will really help on the task switching and keeping the system running quickly. The only downside of Unit 1 is the dual-core processor. However, I think with the mem and the SSD that will not be an issue with the tasks you describe.
One last thing I would look at, is the graphics processing. If it is on-board, then the graphics processor may use up part of the on-board memory. Do you have specs on the Graphics?
You want it for streaming video and listening to music. I bought a new computer online less than a year ago. The things wrong with it are things you can never find out from the specs.
The sound is nearly inaudible. I do use bluetooth to connect to my stereo and that mostly works okay. But every once in a while, the bluetooth goes wonky and is hard to restore.
The built-in camera is a piece of crap. I’ve been zooming constantly for the past nine months and the picture is awful.
There is some mysterious problem with the video display. When I fill out an online survey, my check marks in the circles are invisible. Another sign is that moderator colors are invisible.
Yes, I bought (from LeNovo) on the basis of price, but the point is that those features (especially the sound) are never show on the specs.
Unit 1 is superior in my opinion because of the SSD and additional RAM. You probably aren’t going to push the i5 processor anyway. I think the 16GB Optane Memory is just a new way of caching data on a spinning drive (could be wrong about that). It’s still a spinning drive though and much worse than a SSD.
The weak graphics card on unit 1 is a little concerning. Even if you don’t plan to game with it a better graphics card will help it remain useful longer.
Is there a Unit 3 with specs similar to Unit 1 but with a dedicated graphics card?
Same. I would consider 16GB to be the minimum comfortable amount (i.e., don’t need to worry) of RAM these days unless your usage is rather minimal (email and internet browsing box). Being locked into a maximum of 8GB would be a nonstarter for me.
We’ve recent personal experience with, of all things, 12GB in a laptop for working from home. She tells me it works well, albeit not as well as the desktop I’ve had to commandeer the last few days.
So 12, might be a possibility. I agree with you on 8, and Win10.
Integrated graphics have come a long way fairly recently, and for what he’s doing with it, will do the job just fine. He can always add a discrete graphics card later if he ever needs to.
I think the SATA is the connection type and it is a traditional hard drive. There are different SATA’s so that might matter.
Another frequently overlooked issue is will it work/connect with all the accessories that you currently have. That can be very important when deciding on which to buy.
More RAM is THE key difference for modern users not doing gaming. 8GB max is a dead end machine on the edge of RAM-size obsolescence today. Much less a couple years from now.
For what it’s worth, I’m currently running Firefox, Discord and a few background applications (Steam client, some other monitoring stuff) and showing 7.5GB RAM usage. So it’s not just a “playing video games” type situation (I’m closer to 14GB when gaming) but rather 8GB really being low for modern Win10 usage. A computer locked to 8GB wouldn’t be a consideration for me unless it was really going to be modestly used.
Just built a gaming rig in December. As a life long Intel guy who has never used anything but an Intel processor in the 10 PC’s I have built over the last 25 years I just couldn’t do it this time and went for an AMD processor.
I was looking at an i7 and ended up with a Ryzen 7 3700X. It was about $30 cheaper than the i7 I was looking at but about 30% more processing power.
You may be able to save $50-$100 going the AMD route.
And yeah with the price of RAM, 16GB is a no brainer. And an SSD would be a hard requirement.
Since you have plenty of folks weighing in on your options, I will throw my unasked for opinion into the fray. I built my pc 10 years ago and was in the process of researching its replacement when the mac mini m1 swam into my field of view. I decided to buy it and I am quite happy with it (it also puts me firmly in the Apple “ecosystem” as I have an iphone and an ipad). With your needs you could probably get by with the base model ($699.00). It certainly fits your form factor requirements. The only real downside I can see is that it is a bit bleeding edge and may reveal flaws as time passes.