Acer Intel 8th Gen i5 Desktop vs HP AMD Ryzen 5 2400G Desktop
nonesuch00
Posts: 18,729
HP Pavilion Gaming PC Desktop Computer, AMD Ryzen 5 2400G
vs
Acer Aspire TC-885-ACCFLi5O Desktop, 8th Gen Intel Core i5-8400
Comments?
Personally I think I want the AMD computer over the intel computer but my question is, is this AMD computer's CPU upgradeable to one of those new 12-core AMD CPUs announced very recently using the supplied motherboard?
Oh, here is the motherboard type, it is AM4 type called Sunflower. Here is a link to the recently announced AMD Ryzen 3900X. Yes it uses AM4 so apparently I can save and upgrade the CPUs again and again for at least a few years if I buy an AMD Ryzen CPU desktop, even a cheap entry-level one such as the one linked above.
I need to decide between them while I start saving for one of those 2 computers. They are about the same price at less than $500 each new.
$500 is my limit and I have to save to do that so suggestions that cost $500+ aren't feasible for me. I need a new tech budget computer not one of those old corei2 computers businesses are still trying to fob off on unsuspecting buyers on Amazon and elsewhere.
Thanks.
(I do have an unlimited install Windows 10 license - well in practice MS would probably shut it down if that license started showing up on computers all over the world but from my house only, on multiple PCs, is OK)
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Comments
The way to go would be build your own probably. It's the best bang for your buck, especfially for small budget builds. I can't say for sure about 2400g, but my 3600x build smokes my "old" i5 7500 build in every way.
HP claims that the board maxes out with the Ryzen 7 2700 (8c/16t). So probably not going to work with the 3000 series.
I would strongly suggest not getting either.
HP reports a chipset for the Ryzen motherboard that is not compatible with Ryzen at all. I truly have no idea what that really is.
i5 8400 is a horrible CPU for 2019.
If you want a budget build the 2200G is a good APU but prebuilts with it are likely going to be on the A320 chipset which is never going to accomodate the Ryzen 3000's. There are newer APU's as well, the 3200G and 3400G which are very cheap as well.
Building your own PC will be cheaper meaning you can get more bang for your buck with a small amount of work.
This build is under your budget and can definitely be upgraded to a better CPU after you get a video card,the non G Ryzen chips do not have integrated graphics so you would need a GPU before replacing the APU:
https://pcpartpicker.com/user/kbs666/saved/#view=8bkb8d
This does assume you have a windows license or know how to get one for less than retail.
I love partpicker, used it for a few seemless builds :)
Thanks. Pretty close. I need to get a GPU too that is still somewhat relevant but your list is better than I thought could be done.. Maybe by the time I save $500 (Dec 2019) better or cheaper parts of the same or better capability will be available.
I'll take me an extra month or two but since I can buy the parts piece by piece I'm inclined to buy up in capability and avoid having to upgrade sooner.
So can this SSD Intel - 660p Series 2.048 TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive but used as the boot and system drive for Windows 10 for this motherboard ASRock - X570 Phantom Gaming 4 ATX AM4 Motherboard? Sorry I know not which of M.2-2280, M2-22110, PCI-E, mSATA, and so on, are bootable system capable storage.
ASRock - X570 Phantom Gaming 4 ATX AM4 Motherboard also supports the Ryzen 5 3900X I'm told by @kenshaw011267 so that's great.
Yes, that SSD will work.
If you intend to add a GPU right away then there is no reason to buy the 3200G over something like the 2600 which is a more powerful chip. You also can get a $80 motherboard, there are several B350 boards at that price and prices could get lower on those the longer you wait. The trick will be getting anything but an absolute potato of a GPU inside a $500 budget.
What system do you have now. What do you need to do with the computer. Do you have any known problems with the hardware?
If you have a half descent GPU you may be able to reuse it. If you have an OK system but outdated GPU, you may be able to upgrade the GPU on the old system until more cash is available.
I did the latter myself, I upgraded a 2010 ASUS computer with 6gb of ram with no videa card to an NVIDIA 1070 Ti card as a temporary measure until I was able to get my newer PC.
Depending on what you have already you may be able to upgrade Computer and GPU seperatly.
If you do go with the Intel M.2, consider a heat sink. There have been a few comments that mention it running hot. Using a sink with any M.2 drive is a good idea, in fact many top-line motherboards include them with the board.
And you might have to provide your own mounting screw if your motherboard doesn't come with one.
Thanks! I made an account at that website last night.
Yes, I am buying an integrated GPU to cap the costs because I fully expect cheaper but more core Ryzens to come out next year that the X570 Phantom Gaming 4 ATX AM4 Motherboard can run. I've capped the CPU at this at $149 - AMD - Ryzen 3400G 3.7 GHz Quad-Core Processor. I also expect AMD to come out next year in the meantime with a GPU that can do realtime raytracing or the current nVidia GPUs that can raytrace available now to be cheaper. Unless DAZ 3D adds the ProRender engine as a render engine option to DAZ Studio I am inclined to save and buy a realtime ray tracing nVidia video card.
As it is, the parts capability upgrades have raised the base price to $675 but it's not like I won't get lots of use out of a 2TB SSD no matter how many times I upgrade the GPU / GPU. I might buy at 500GB SSD to save $150 since the mb has 3 M.2 slots. I know I'd eventually like 2 2TB m.2 SSDs with the second serving as an onboard backup device of the 2TB system/boot disk SSD.
After buying a realtime capable raytracing video card, whether I wind up doing a lot of animation rendering or not, I don't see me buying another new CPU until the core count reaches 16 cores - 32 hyper threads. Also, after this 570X mb, I won't buy a new motherboard except to support a CPU that has 256 cores either. That's the number of cores they used to use on animation render farms so it's strictly something that is an 'over-the-top' luxury if such a CPU ever becomes available to consumers.
The strong possibility of a required mb upgrade to buy future CPUs with more than 16 cores from AMD makes fully decking out the 570X mb with the full 128GB RAM it can support a dicey gamble so I'll just eventually stop at 32GB via accumulating 8GB RAM sticks and see where prices and tech are in a couple of years.
It's really weird to consider that the capability of current new AMD computers are so good that I probably won't even need to consider upgrading.
Yes, just DAZ Studio, you can guess. Unity (always the latest released version), and Blender, the latest released version.
The last, I don't know, 6 or seven builds I've done have all been Ryzen (I build them fro friends and family when they need a new PC), I cannot recommend this line or CPUs enough. Especially the APUs if you're on a budget.
Here's a build that has a GPU as well as a more powerful CPU then one of the APU (so many PUs, lol). Also included a single 16 gb stick of ram for future upgrades. Ryzen likes Dual channel more then single channel, so if you don't plan on going for 32 gigs in the future, then you may want to try something different for that. Kept it as close as I could to $500 using all new parts, left out a storage solution, figuring you probably could salvage an HDD from something (if not shoot me a PM I'll mail out one for free, I have half a dozen laying around) but once you throw a GPU in things can get pricey. If you want to be able to upgrade the GPU I wouldn't any lesst then what is in this list, wattage wise. The case is meh, but that's fine, nothing wrong with it.
https://pcpartpicker.com/user/BrimstoneOmega/saved/dcWTWZ
Thanks for the suggestions.
To summarize: My intel HD Graphics 4000 integrated GPU actually isn't the big problem, DAZ Studio 4.11 has actually improved performance-wise in the past 2 years since I bought this used laptop. The problem is my CPU and the horrendous node.js library the newest versions of Unity are using. It is so aggravating to have to drop this much cash on a new PC and save that many months because of something as unneeded as the poor design choice the Unity staff made in choosing to use node.js in the Unity Editor for their asset store. Yes, a javascript library that pummels my laptop is the cause for this upgrade and not the lack of 3D modeling and rendering capabilities! It seems ridiculous and not believable but I assure you that is the case.
So anyway, I have a circa 2012 HP 8470P Elitebook with a i7 with an intel HD Graphics 4000 GPU that is integrated. It has 16GB RAM. I bought it for $50 on eBay 2 years ago. My laptop has my old 240GB circa 2011 SSD card I bought for a since melted down ASUS EP121 tablet PC (truly a colossal waste of $1250 on my part for the ASUS EP121 and I'm not too impressed with the ASUS or intel design and warranty support either).
This laptop is already maxed out in upgrades and I was actually quite happy with it's performance even before the improved DAZ Studio rendering speeds with version 4.11+.
The only reason I'm being forced to upgrade is that the newest released versions of Unity are using a his truly junk and poor quality javascript library called node.js integrated into the Unity Editor to interface as a html client with the Unity Asset Store (think of every time you've visited a website that has hung or taken exceedingly long to render - the likely culprit is node.js library is being used). That node.js library pummels my laptop taking 15 - 30 minutes to render a 'My Assets' local page in the Unity Editor. Otherwise I use DAZ Studio 4.11 which has actually much improved in performance on my laptop and Blender 2.79 which has decreased in performance but only because I have it clogged up with add-ons, but Blender is still quite useable after it finishes starting up.
Thanks, I saved your built. I can mix & match between your built suggestions & others. By the time i actually have saved the money in December I should be back up to speed somewhat on modern PC tech. I didn't expect so many SSD types to sort through.
I also have to remember to buy a WiFi card that will work in the AM4 motherboards.
Did you try upgrading the processor with something like this https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Core-i7-3610QM-2-3GHz-Quad-Core-Mobile-Laptop-CPU-SR0MN-Socket-G2-CPU1376/233288524273?epid=27017983212&hash=item36511461f1:g:Bj4AAOSw8j1dLP30 ?
If you still have the original processor, there's a chance it's only a 2 core 4 thread instead of a 4 core 8 threads which may explain the struggle with node.js
You'd need to be very confortable with soldering under a scope to change the CPU in most laptops. I might be able to pull it off but I wouldn't count on it.
Its so easy on these models you could do it with blind eyes and tied hands. Just get the right tools
Some of the CPUs that HP lists as factory options for that laptop do not come in soldered versions. So it's a pretty safe bet that the motherboard has an actual CPU socket.
Look at the processor listed in the computer details. If it ends in "QM" then you already have a quad core CPU installed. If it just ends in "M" after the numbers then it's just a dual core, and a CPU ending in QM will be a big upgrade. (though I don't know if I could reccomend spending $55 on a CPU upgade for a notebook that old.)
That's the big question. In my opinion, 55$ vs +500$ for a node.js problem is pretty much a good choice in my POV (Edit : Provided the node.js problem is the good diagnosis. I never had such problem )
IF the OP wants really more CPU+GPU power in the long run, moving to a desktop is the better choice
Thanks for the suggestions.
No, in this case, the HP 8470P Elitebook originally had a mobile i5-3210m CPU in it that was 2 cores with 4 hyperthreads and I upgraded it to an intel i7-3630QM with 4 cores and 8 hyperthreads for another $55 on eBay. No soldering or such was needed just the turn of a screw to lock or unlock the CPU into place.
It is with the i7-3630QM that the node.js library Unity Asset Store tab in the latest released version of Unity 2019.1 has fits. I am actually a bit flabbergasted that the Unity Editor Asset Store client code changes passed muster with Unity QA but I guess I must be one of about a dozen people actually actively using such a computer that is so old so that they are not actually testing their code changes that thoroughly as it's clear my laptop is still supported by Unity 2019.1.
It really is as case of node.js being horrendous knot of code. It's pretty laughable that the Unity Editor can run it's game engine on my computer with ease but can't run it's asset store client on my computer without tying itself in knots.
So AMD Ryzen 5 3600G with integrated Vega 11...here I come. It might be quite fun animating with such a new high speed computer.
I actually did just that, but for a bit better model CPU and I upgraded almost 3 years ago this December. So $105 for a computer I'm going to wind up getting about 3 years of 3D use out of is excellent but yes, with the newest version of Unity and the upcoming likelihood that I'm actually going to want to render animations in DAZ Studio, Blender, & Unity; well, this laptop is EOL for most 3D by the end of the year. I think I will keep it in the living room though and use it with AutoDesk Sketchbook & a Bamboo and also for doing box modeling and texturing in Blender.
If it's just the asset store, can't you go there with a browser instead?
Otherwise for some slow down I've seen some people calling the unity.exe appended with a parameter (something like -opengl)
Anyway, I think you'll be better with a ryzen+dedicated GPU for 3D work
Thanks.
No, the problem is to even browse the assets after purchased so it's the Asset Store client code when it accesses assets I've bought and downloaded local to my PC and although online Asset Store is much slower it's fast enough to use. I must use the integrated Asset Store client in the Unity Editor because I haven't memorized the name of every asset I've purchased and want to use locally. It's be like trying to use DAZ Studio assets with no icons at all to guide you to make choices. I could manually build a catalogue or buy yet another Unity asset store asset that builds an 'external catalogue of my purchased apps for about $40' but neither solve the problem ultimately as they are just temporary work arounds.
I have over 1000 Unity Asset Store purchases (many were free) and on my local drive so that's a small part of the problem when not handled efficiently by a catalogue client.
I'll just built a new AMD PC (although I might buy that $40 Unity asset catalogue building app in the meantime).