PC Replace or upgrade?

[Driver_Col]

My Trainz is currently running on a dedicated Dell XPS720: Windows 7 32-bit; E6750 Duo CPU 2.66/2.67GHz; 6GB RAM (3GB usable);68GB available free space; NVIDIA GTS250 video.

However, for non-Trainz work/interests, I recently bought a Dell Inspiron 15R SE (7520) laptop; Windows 8.1; i7-3632QM CPU 2.20/2.20GHz; 8GB RAM (7.87 usable); 652GB free space; Radeon HD7730M 2GB video.

As a matter of simple practicality, I have TC & TS12 backed up on the new laptop. However, what comes as a surprise to me is that Trainz runs smoother on the laptop (albeit sharing resources with a myriad of other programs) than it does on the dedicated XPS720! Performance on the XPS720 does appear to have recently deteriorated which could be linked to a recent driver upgrade from NVIDIA which included "Experience software" which is supposed to "optimise" my pc........... but "optimisation" does not work with GTS250! I have cleaned, defrag'd, and allocated 50GB of HD as RAM and also uninstalled the NVIDIA Experience program. As at this moment, performance is still lacking. Unless somebody can come up with some maintenance function that I have overlooked, I must concede that I am spoiled by my new laptop which presents a number of options:

1. Upgrade the XPS720 OS to a 64-bit system - is it worth it given the other specs?
2. Upgrade the NVIDIA graphics - is it worth it given the other specs?
3. Use the new laptop as my Trainz pc and the XPS as backup? This is my obvious option however, my reservations are simply that the laptop really cooks itself when running Trainz (even when sitting on a cooler). Also I have so much important stuff on the laptop that I really would prefer not to have a well cooked pc die on me.
4. Buy a new pc and, given the performance of this Dell Inspiron, would consider looking at an Alien laptop with possibly SSD.

In summary, I could see my way to buying a high end gaming laptop if it was going to be worth it, but would any of the other options make more sense????

All thoughts appreciated. Regards. Colin.

ps. No thoughts about custom build please. I have had success with numerous Dell's over the years and if something goes wrong, I know that I only have to contact Dell........ rather than get into a potential dispute over which parts manufacturer caused the issue etc.

 

[johnwhelan]

Looking at tomshardware http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html and http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106-5.html I'd say the hardware shouldn't be that bad.

Win 7 upgrade cost from 32 bit to 64 bit should be free. I seem to recall they use the same serial number. My suspicion is reinstalling Win 7 64 bit will clean out a lot of junk and your machine should run faster.

Check the power supply and the numbers but a GeForce GTX 760 might be a reasonable upgrade.

Cheerio John

 

[Driver_Col]

Looking at tomshardware http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html and http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106-5.html I'd say the hardware shouldn't be that bad.

Win 7 upgrade cost from 32 bit to 64 bit should be free. I seem to recall they use the same serial number. My suspicion is reinstalling Win 7 64 bit will clean out a lot of junk and your machine should run faster.

Check the power supply and the numbers but a GeForce GTX 760 might be a reasonable upgrade.

Cheerio John

Thx John. Always nice to hear from you! I'll look into your suggestions. Regards. Colin.

 

[LNERlover5]

I have a slight feeling that a GTX760 would be bottle necked by the Core 2 Duo and wouldn't be able to contribute to it's full potential.

This LinusTechTips example being where I draw this idea based on the video cards used. Both cards are slower than the 760 however they are both affected by the lack of performance offered by the Core 2 Duo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGdo75gasaQ

 

[johnwhelan]

I have a slight feeling that a GTX760 would be bottle necked by the Core 2 Duo and wouldn't be able to contribute to it's full potential.

This LinusTechTips example being where I draw this idea based on the video cards used. Both cards are slower than the 760 however they are both affected by the lack of performance offered by the Core 2 Duo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGdo75gasaQ

That would be at the back of my mind as well, but "Dell have yet to release a BIOS for the 720 that will support the 45nm CPUs. They WILL NOT WORK in the 720 or the 720H2C. They have even stated they have no intention of updating the BIOS for 45nm support." so changing the CPU is probably not an easy or cheap task. So of the available easy options step one Win 7 64 bit and hopefully the drivers will be more optimised and he has a bit of Malware or some such taking cycles up. Giving Trainz 4 gigs of memory rather than 2 gigs with 32 bit might be worth a frame rate or two as well. Even if the CPU is a bottle neck dropping a faster GPU in might make a difference as tasks typically get sent to the GPU then executed on to GPU so yes on a balanced system its nice to have them balanced but in real life a faster GPU may help. TS12 I think is limited to two cores in driver so a 4 core CPU doesn't gain you that much.

Cheerio John

 

[LNERlover5]

That would be at the back of my mind as well, but "Dell have yet to release a BIOS for the 720 that will support the 45nm CPUs. They WILL NOT WORK in the 720 or the 720H2C. They have even stated they have no intention of updating the BIOS for 45nm support." so changing the CPU is probably not an easy or cheap task. So of the available easy options step one Win 7 64 bit and hopefully the drivers will be more optimised and he has a bit of Malware or some such taking cycles up. Giving Trainz 4 gigs of memory rather than 2 gigs with 32 bit might be worth a frame rate or two as well. Even if the CPU is a bottle neck dropping a faster GPU in might make a difference as tasks typically get sent to the GPU then executed on to GPU so yes on a balanced system its nice to have them balanced but in real life a faster GPU may help. TS12 I think is limited to two cores in driver so a 4 core CPU doesn't gain you that much.

A newer GPU would indeed help, my point being that a GTX760 is a tad overboard based on the rest of the configuration. A newer, mid range performance bracket card might be more appropriate based on power consumption, price and expected performance. An R7 260X (Or HD 7790) might suit.

However my opinion here is that the issue lies with the Core 2 Duo, while it's not the cheapest and easiest part to replace I would pin that to be the issue due to Trainz being more CPU bound. However one option that is not too expensive is a Haswell Pentium dual core. Higher per core performance due to architectural changes from Conroe to Haswell, with overall performance comparable to the Core 2 Quads (Passmark). Lower cost with models available from £40 in the UK and a very strong upgrade path over time from socket LGA 1150 with moving on to an i3, i5 or i7 being an option if so desired.

 

[johnwhelan]

A newer GPU would indeed help, my point being that a GTX760 is a tad overboard based on the rest of the configuration. A newer, mid range performance bracket card might be more appropriate based on power consumption, price and expected performance. An R7 260X (Or HD 7790) might suit.

However my opinion here is that the issue lies with the Core 2 Duo, while it's not the cheapest and easiest part to replace I would pin that to be the issue due to Trainz being more CPU bound. However one option that is not too expensive is a Haswell Pentium dual core. Higher per core performance due to architectural changes from Conroe to Haswell, with overall performance comparable to the Core 2 Quads (Passmark). Lower cost with models available from £40 in the UK and a very strong upgrade path over time from socket LGA 1150 with moving on to an i3, i5 or i7 being an option if so desired.

Switching CPUs is more complex than switching the video card and we've already said we like Dell because we don't have to worry about which bit is working or not working we are looking at the integrated product. Switching the video card might be a risk we are prepared to take switching the CPU is a bigger risk.

In general computer parts are cheaper in Canada / US so a GTX760 from somewhere like Newegg.ca is around $270 plus 13% sales tax the HD 770 around $180 plus the 13%. If the mid range card is enough fine, but if it isn't you're out $170 since you still need to buy the more expensive card, if the more expensive card is overkill so what it works. I suggested the GTX760 based both on performance and on the TDP which is similar to the current card, that means it should be well within the power supply's capabilities.

Then you're into staying with nVidia or switching to AMD, switching to AMD I'd reinstall the operating system to make sure all the old bits of drivers were removed. I'm sure others will say that registry cleaners are wonderful but I take a more conservative approach and stay away from them.

Whilst TC3 and below were more CPU bound the later versions from TS2009 do put a lot more work on the GPU, and since it will probably be running TS12 the GPU is more critical. It's extremely difficult to say how much CPU or GPU is enough for Trainz because of the user content and how it is placed. A couple of Sketchup created models included and you need liquid nitrogen over clocking on both the CPU and GPU.

One issue is the motherboard, Dell are good at creating a decent machine but if it had a more standard ASUS motherboard then switching the CPU to something more interesting would be a lot easier. However the XPS720 has been around since 2007 so it could be quite an elderly machine. DRR2 memory, limited CPU, Dell were good at one time are they any more? Dunno. An alternative might be something like the ASUS below.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883220405 read through the newegg.ca reviews, they're interesting.

Cheerio John

 

[Driver_Col]

Hi Guys - Just to bring you up to speed: I decided that rather than go from Windows 7 32-bit to 64-bit, I would go with Windows 8 64-bit as that is what works so well on my laptop. However (learning curve!!!!), when Windows 8 installs, it defaults to the original OS (32-bit) so I now have Windows 8.1 32-bit! The CD/DVD should be here in a few days so I am anticipating that I can re-install a 64-bit version from that media. I don't suppose for one moment that it will be that straight forward but one can always hope ...... and the backups are already done.
Regards. Colin.

 

[drchoi21]

I would actually buy Q9650 for cheap and upgrade the ram to 8GB

 

[johnwhelan]

I would actually buy Q9650 for cheap and upgrade the ram to 8GB

For this to work you need to find a reliable source for the Q9650, out of stock at newegg.ca, you need to confirm on one of the Dell web sites that that particular motherboard and bios support the Q9650, you'd need a you-tube tutorial on how to do it and even then I'd want to look at toms and see how they compared. I suspect Ts12 only uses 2 cores so going to 4 may not gain you much.

Cheerio John

 

[drchoi21]

you could always get it on ebay and amazon, and XPS 720 is supporting 45nm Quads, which means Q9000 and Q8000 series are supported and you don't need a youtube tutorial even to replace the cpu, just match the triangle notch on the mobo and the cpu and close the metal holder and voila- replacement done. Even if it takes up only two threads, I believe you will need other threads to run the background processes and the IPC improvements are greater than you may think

 

[PC_Ace]

Yep, an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 3.0Ghz still cuts it according to Tom's Hardware "Best Gaming CPU for the Money" hierarchy - they rank at the 3rd highest level - and ahead of many more modern CPUs - in the November 2013 edition.
I still have one in my once-state-of-the-art but now ageing home theatre machine (HTPC) and it continues to perform flawlessly - it is never the source of any bottleneck.
PC

 

[johnwhelan]

you could always get it on ebay and amazon, and XPS 720 is supporting 45nm Quads, which means Q9000 and Q8000 series are supported and you don't need a youtube tutorial even to replace the cpu, just match the triangle notch on the mobo and the cpu and close the metal holder and voila- replacement done. Even if it takes up only two threads, I believe you will need other threads to run the background processes and the IPC improvements are greater than you may think

On Amazon.ca an Q9650 is $648.72 Canada can be different. Given the user is more comfortable buying a complete solution from Dell rather than building their own I suspect a You-Tube video might help with the comfort level. Comparing the differences on Toms its three levels so yes there is a difference but not that much. Go ebay and its still $400 unless you go Hong Kong when you're down to $300 including shipping and my comfort level with what you get from an ebay supplier isn't the same as dealing with Amazon directly or Dell directly. I've been hit with a $70 customs handling fee for an item that had no duty to be paid at customs, again the rules are different to US.

Dell has tested the following CPUs with the motherboard

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/p/19491588/20299605.aspx

the Q9650 is not listed.

Cheerio John

 

[drchoi21]

Try getting the cpu in US then ship it to canada, or just buy Q8300 for CDN 217

 

[johnwhelan]

Try getting the cpu in US then ship it to canada, or just buy Q8300 for CDN 217

Colin could always move to the US I suppose. Read the first message again and check the constraints. By the way I don't see the Q8300 as listed for that motherboard, I guess he could always buy an i7 since that one isn't listed for the motherboard either.

Note to Colin the i7 for your current machine is not a serious suggestion.

Cheerio John

 

[beckster181]

If you are buying the win 8 upgrade pack i think you will always be stuck with the 32 bit problem as it is only an upgrade you may have to go for the full version but be careful as if you get the Win 8 OEM version it is tied to the mother board and you cant transfer it from one to another as Windows have made changes to their OEM licenses i build all the computers my family uses and apart from some minor issues that were traced to a pair of faulty power supply's which wouldn't give power to new graphics cards which required power to the card directly and my sons CPU cooler fan failing one time and the thermal shut down not working so it fried the 8 core chip we have no problems with home building.

As to why your current system is running slow i agree it is most likely something like malware or spyware i use spybot and AVG anti virus and we never have a problem with those things.

if simple things like a fresh install of windows or the full install of win 8 64 bit dont work as you like as it is a dell and you dont feel comfortable building your own system i would look to get a new system similar to your laptop or better since your happy withh how it works and it is not a bad system to run trainz on.

enjoy the learning curves
"if we stop learning we are dead"
Quote from my mother whho tried to learn something new till the day she died aged 89.

 

[Driver_Col]

Colin could always move to the US I suppose. Read the first message again and check the constraints. By the way I don't see the Q8300 as listed for that motherboard, I guess he could always buy an i7 since that one isn't listed for the motherboard either.

Note to Colin the i7 for your current machine is not a serious suggestion.

Cheerio John

Hi John (and other contributors). I am very comfortable working with computers but only at a "functional' level. Much of the earlier dialogue, while I understand the concepts of what are being proposed, just confuses me. Age is probably not helping, nor is the fact that I am not looking for any major challenges/projects at this point in time. As for the CD/DVD for W8......... it was ordered (at the same time as W8 download) as a backup so I am hoping that it will give me the 64-bit install option. If I cannot move beyond 32-bit, then I think that I will be looking at various gaming pcs. Desktops appeal because of their inherent ability (physical size) to stay cool "under pressure". Laptops appeal because of their portability. Applying a cost consideration, preliminary research suggests I would get a better deal per se with a desktop.

Many thx for everybody's interest. Please keep comments coming. Regards. Colin.

 

[johnwhelan]

Just to recap I think your current machine is about five years old and I'm under the impression that you've upgraded to win 8 is that correct?

Thanks John

 

[Driver_Col]

Just to recap I think your current machine is about five years old and I'm under the impression that you've upgraded to win 8 is that correct?

Thanks John

Hi John - XPS720 was purchased Nov 2007 and it is currently running on Win 8.1 32-bit. Thx. Colin.

 

[johnwhelan]

Hi John - XPS720 was purchased Nov 2007 and it is currently running on Win 8.1 32-bit. Thx. Colin.

If it doesn't cut it with win 8.1 then I think its time to spend some money. $1,000 will buy a fairly reasonable machine such as the ASUS on newegg.ca $300 will buy a reasonable GPU upgrade the $1,000 solution will work, the $300 will show some improvement but how much I wouldn't like to say. Be aware that Dell make their money on people adding upgrades to their machines such as faster processors, more memory, bigger hard drives, things that it is difficult to compare.

Cheerio John