Poor SFF Lenovo

[DiyNutJob]

Performance on a single decades old mechanical hard disk is going to be generally terrible

It would not be terrible on XP. It all depends on what the machine is used for. For browsing only, you don't need more than XP. For office apps, windows 7 will allow some of the more recent app versions. CPU performance does matter. You can't just go by when the CPU came out. Benchmarks will give a clue. Regressing the OS is one of the ways to deal with performance issues. The newer the OS, more bloated it is in terms of background processes.

Here's how I look at performance. Slowest was XP CPU, next up I used for Windows 7 and Windows 10, Next up Windows 10. The fastest one is probably in the 50 percentile performance of all current PC's. It isn't fast but OK. At most i5-4570T, should run Windows 7 with SSD. Otherwise it's a struggle.

Intel Xeon E5-2696 v3 vs Xeon E5-2650 v2 vs i5-4570T vs Core2 Quad Q6600 [cpubenchmark.net] by PassMark Software

 

[DiyNutJob]

A recent poster said he paid £250 for good performance, and you can see the difference:

Intel i5-10505 vs i5-4570T [cpubenchmark.net] by PassMark Software

 

[JohnD]

A recent poster said he paid £250 for good performance, and you can see the difference:

Intel i5-10505 vs i5-4570T [cpubenchmark.net] by PassMark Software

You mean the extra cost of a faster processor?

But I think that would not hold if you wanted to upgrade an existing machine.

 

[DiyNutJob]

You mean the extra cost of a faster processor?

No, he's got a new box: https://www.diynot.com/diy/threads/dell-optiplex-5090-i5-10505.609134/

My upgrade is about £250 in components. I get my stuff from china. So, extra bang for my wallet.

 

[LeeJC]

Hi,
Can you give me more details of the system please.
Is it a thinkcentre m (whatever)

There are upgrade paths available which will eek you another couple of years out of it.
Most pertinent question is what do you want to do with it?
If it's gaming you'll need a discrete GPU of some description, and with it being SFF it's likely to need a half height.
Your CPU is a 35 Watt device, there are i7/Xeon's in the 45 Watt range but without details of the variant you have it's difficult to say if it will either work and/or have sufficient cooling.
Definitely invest in an SSD, the ar$e has fallen out of the solid state memory currently, so 500Gb/1Tb SATA drives are cheap as chips. As your processor is 2013+ vintage and NVME was released as a technology in 2012 this might be another option but impossible to tell without more information on the system.

I might have parts that can give you an uplift, let me know the model number and i'll see what I've got kicking around CPU wise.

Cheers
Lee

 

[foxhole]

Installed linux on usb stick and boots ok, then got warning hard drive is about to die.

For Lee

 

[foxhole]

Would this be suitable ?

 

[hllns]

I'd probably go with something smaller/cheaper on a box that old unless you really need the full 512G

 

[RandomGrinch]

I'd probably go with something smaller/cheaper on a box that old unless you really need the full 512G

It's only £20 - storage is cheap at the moment. It can always be utilised elsewhere in the future.
Though personally, I would go for a better known brand

 

[hllns]

Ah didn't double check price, only went by the price in the screenshot, 15-20 quid is about right and would get you a name brand.

 

[robinbanks]

Though personally, I would go for a better known brand

I was going to mention perhaps putting more like 30 quid at a Samsung 860, but then I considered the application/machine spec/age/etc

 

[foxhole]

Got a crucial 512gb for £23.

 

[foxhole]

Having installed SSD and new copy of windows benchmarks shows the system is even worse than the previous score. Beginning to doubt the accuracy of benchmarks.As part of an upgrade it recommends the installation of the same SSD it just condemned.

 

[robinbanks]

Lol. How is the system performance in terms of perceived speed?

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Having installed SSD and new copy of windows benchmarks shows the system is even worse than the previous score. Beginning to doubt the accuracy of benchmarks.As part of an upgrade it recommends the installation of the same SSD it just condemned.

Odd, my decade old, and battered Acer absolutely flew after I replaced the HDD with an SSD.

My latest laptop, crawled, whilst the M2 SSD was none functioning, when relying on the HDD. With the M2 back to functioning, it really flies again.