Hi there. Considering a day to day PC usage as 98% browsing and watching movies, are there any valid reasons to upgrade from an older CPU like let's say second gen Core processors like Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge or AMD Phenom II / FX to newer ones? Will Windows use some specially optimized instructions present on the CPUs like AVX or AVX2 ? Or just using an older CP should be enough. Hardware acceleration in video players, is that still a thing? Aren't cpus powerful enough to provide the necessary horsepower even if that hardware acceleration is not available?
Reasons to upgrade the CPU
- Thread starter MARSTG
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Marzipan
Well-known member
Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge is more than powerful enough...Phenon II n FX though, they were weak sauce when they came out. you could look for a quad core Pentium processor...I have a Gold 4560 based on Kaby Lake I've got to put up for sale. I have a Asus H170 Gaming Pro mobo to pair with it too.
My friend that upgraded from a 2500k recently said his system struggled with 4K video (YouTube), so that could likely be an issue as web video may not be offloaded to the GPU properly, assuming you even have a GPU that supports it.
The bigger aspect to me is that 2nd-gen Core CPUs only typically had SATA2 ports, if you had a H67/P67, maybe 2 SATA3 ports. That hampers I/O performance which is far more crucial to me for a "smooth" experience.
I think 3rd-gen Intel and newer you'd be alright generally speaking. I don't think Phenom II is new enough or performed well enough for it's time.
The bigger aspect to me is that 2nd-gen Core CPUs only typically had SATA2 ports, if you had a H67/P67, maybe 2 SATA3 ports. That hampers I/O performance which is far more crucial to me for a "smooth" experience.
I think 3rd-gen Intel and newer you'd be alright generally speaking. I don't think Phenom II is new enough or performed well enough for it's time.
Bond007
Well-known member
For general use the biggest weak link is missing motherboard features, and efficiencies with newer instruction sets in the cpu. If those things aren't a problem for your general uses, then I have no problem using cheap sandy/ivy builds with a sata ssd and 8gb ram.
clshades
Well-known member
Don't by a GoPro then lol...
Any kind of 4K video stuff will struggle hard to down scale. HEVC would be the reason I’m looking to upgrade
Any kind of 4K video stuff will struggle hard to down scale. HEVC would be the reason I’m looking to upgrade
