how powerful a PC to suggest

[Donald]

I was talking to two ladies at church both whose business is editing & proofreading documents, books, etc. They told me they need a powerful PC (like a gaming PC) to do their work as they always have lots of windows open. I am not convinced.

(I have been involved in the mainframe operating system for 30+ years and understand threads of work, multi tasking, single CPU vs multi, dispatching.)

My feeling is having many windows open may use a lot of RAM, but not CPU power. Also using something like a text editor cannot easily use more than a single CPU, very hard to break up a process like that into two units of work that can be dispatched simultaneously across multiple CPUs.

While there are sure to be some Windows background tasks that can be dispatched from time to time on a second CPU, my gut tells me that if you had more than 2 CPUs the ones beyond 2 would be parked a lot.

 

[racer12306]

If it's strictly text documents, I can't believe they need a full bore device. Lots of ram, yes, but top of the line processor, no.

 

[Dave Sherman]

Unless they have graphic-intensive documents that need significant horsepower to render images (say, a CAD drawing), then no, don't need lots of horsepower for document editing. Having lots of windows and documents needs RAM more than processing power.

 

[Quattro Pete]

An average intel i5 CPU and 8 GB of RAM should be plenty for their needs, IMO.

No need for a gaming rig.

 

[Hokiefyd]

Frankly, my Pentium G2030/4GB machine at home would be plenty for that use. The Pentium G processor is one step below the Core i series, and is a great value. I have Windows 8.1 on an SSD in this machine and it just flies. I'm not sure what I'd do with anything more powerful!

 

[OneEyeJack]

For the task at hand it would be difficult to purchase a desktop PC today that did not have more than enough RAM and processor power to handle the job.

What might interest them is a setup with 2 or 3 monitors. They could then work on multiple documents and better organize their activities.

 

[rjundi]

i5 is perfect for that situation coupled to 8gb of ram and modern video card handling multiple screens fine.

Another aspect of a stock gaming machine in the past is they typically use high speed drives making up for lack of RAM needed.

Most folks do not realize the major choke of computers is the hard drive as everything ends up there once the hardware fills up. I am floored how fast my 7 year old Thinkpad T500 is with a $60 64GB SSD and its prior 5400 RPM(pig) HDD in the removable CD slot for storage.

 

[3800Series]

I would recommend a AMD A6-5200 quad core and about 6gbs of ddr3 ram should fit their needs perfectly.


Or you can go overkill and wait till AMD releases the mythical Zen 16 core CPU along with two GeForce GTX Titan X. Could also spring for 64 GBs of DDR4 ram. With a Samsung 850 pro for the system and a single 1TB hard drive for raw storage.

 

[gomes512]

Had a customer looking for a computer that performed similar work about 3-4 years ago. I demo'd a first gen core i3 with integrated HD graphics and 8gb of RAM on a micro ATX board with a SSD. It clocked in at 2.6Ghz with 8Gb of RAM, much to their disbelief, the system was overkill even for what they were doing in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop CS5.

 

[Donald]

Originally Posted By: 3800Series
I would recommend a AMD A6-5200 quad core and about 6gbs of ddr3 ram should fit their needs perfectly.


Or you can go overkill and wait till AMD releases the mythical Zen 16 core CPU along with two GeForce GTX Titan X. Could also spring for 64 GBs of DDR4 ram. With a Samsung 850 pro for the system and a single 1TB hard drive for raw storage.



I think you are missing the point. Doing word processing cannot use more than one processor. So two processors would be all that is needed. If you had a quad core, two would be parked.

 

[sicko]

A solid CPU is all that's needed, a bunch of a RAM is where it's at for them, also having a dual monitor setup will help them simply b/c it helps when you have a lot of documents open to have them arranged across more real estate.

 

[EdwardC]

Originally Posted By: Donald
Originally Posted By: 3800Series
I would recommend a AMD A6-5200 quad core and about 6gbs of ddr3 ram should fit their needs perfectly.


Or you can go overkill and wait till AMD releases the mythical Zen 16 core CPU along with two GeForce GTX Titan X. Could also spring for 64 GBs of DDR4 ram. With a Samsung 850 pro for the system and a single 1TB hard drive for raw storage.





I think you are missing the point. Doing word processing cannot use more than one processor. So two processors would be all that is needed. If you had a quad core, two would be parked.


I'm guessing 3800 was kidding a bit on that last part

I was curious whether office applications use multiple cores, this link seems to think so, but really just in starting the program and opening files, not as much during the use of the program: http://softtalkblog.com/2010/05/18/how-office-2010-takes-advantage-of-multicore-hardware/

I think some of your terminology is off, the processor is usually one physical unit, and has one or more core within it. I agree though, I don't think they need a top of the line machine at all. Additional ram and a SSD will allow them to have lots of programs open, and files will open very quickly. I bet they'd be very happy with that.

 

[3800Series]

Originally Posted By: Donald
Originally Posted By: 3800Series
I would recommend a AMD A6-5200 quad core and about 6gbs of ddr3 ram should fit their needs perfectly.


Or you can go overkill and wait till AMD releases the mythical Zen 16 core CPU along with two GeForce GTX Titan X. Could also spring for 64 GBs of DDR4 ram. With a Samsung 850 pro for the system and a single 1TB hard drive for raw storage.



I think you are missing the point. Doing word processing cannot use more than one processor. So two processors would be all that is needed. If you had a quad core, two would be parked.


Quad core desktops are cheap. They are excellent at multi tasking. And for the same price of a dual core you can get a quad. That will meet all there needs and be useful for future needs.

The A6-5200 is only quad core 2ghz wasn't like I said they would need something along the lines of a AMD trinity (3.8ghz quad). A6-5200 is a low end CPU that is cheap and would fill all their needs today and in the future. Ram isn't everything, it doesn't matter how much ram you have if your CPU is a massive bottle neck. Quad core CPU's are proven multi tasking CPU.

You can buy a Gateway with a A6-5200 with 6GB's of ram for $399.99 that's a very affordable PC that will meet all their needs.

 

[IndyIan]

Maybe they deal with a lot of large pdf's? I find large drawings on my dual core intel laptop bog it down. The rest of the time its fine for my general office work.

 

[tezzzas]

College student, gamer, car guy, and former IT peon here. I have an HP A8-3800, I have been using the last four years. Paid 500 for it, greater gamer, but lacking in some cases. Opening the PDFs can bog it down and word at times would. So, I upgraded to 16gig of DDR3. Really, helped out a lot, when I had tons of windows open. I would grab them a quad gpu, and 6gigs of ram, and they will be rocking and rolling.

 

[OVERKILL]

An i3 with 8GB of RAM would be more than adequate for this application. An SSD would make it extremely "snappy".

What they think they need and what they actually need are two very different things.

 

[gathermewool]

Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
An i3 with 8GB of RAM would be more than adequate for this application. An SSD would make it extremely "snappy".

What they think they need and what they actually need are two very different things.


+1

They don't need more than two physical cores, and what you describe as their needs won't require stressing multiple logical cores.

Realistically, a budget i5 rig with plenty of RAM can be had for very cheap. Even Haswell processors (4th gen) are cheap in budget configurations. If they want a "gaming processor," then I'd suggest an Ivy bridge (3rd gen) i7 to save money, if you can find one.

More importantly, an SSD, which aren't very expensive now a days.

All of it will also matter not if they're saving and editing work on a server that is slow. At certain sites, it literally takes 10 seconds just to spend a database. The core-2-duo isn't to blame...

 

[BearZDefect]

+2 to OVERKILL and gathermewool.

Desktop i3 processors run at a high frequency, no need for a quad core IMO.
The 8 GB RAM is ample to make multi-document handling a breeze.
And as they point out, an SSD will make the whole thing sing.

 

[JustinH]

Take a look at the dell outlet.

An optiplex desktop would be great for them.

Windows 8 runs great.

 

[BearZDefect]

Yes, the Dell Business Outlet: http://www.dell.com/us/dfb/p/

They have some good coupon codes valid until 05/02/2015 9 AM CT, you can find them right there on the site but here are some of potential interest:

$500 off Latitude 7000 series laptops of $899 or more using LATI7
$400 off OptiPlex 9000 series desktops and all-in-ones of $699 or more using OPTI9
$300 off OptiPlex 3000 or 7000 desktops of $520 or more using OPTI3#7
$300 off Latitude 5000 or 6000 series laptops of $640 or more using LATI5#6
30% off monitors using MONITOR30%