Basically not looking to break the bank. I'm trying to avoid unnecessary bloat on a pre-built tower with HDMI out, as her TV is going to be a primary display. Doesn't need a lot of HP under the hood, just enough to run basic stuff like Minecraft or Roblox. She wants to make mods and games.

Don't know the best brand for limiting crap bloatware though, so I'm mainly looking for that in a >$300usd price range if I can. Currently, she's doing her best on an old eMachines running windows 7.

Preference is: Tower HDMI out Limited bloat.

Maybe ease of expandability? That's something odd love to help her with later down the road though. Mostly a starter pc not handicapped completely.

Hi,

Is it possible for someone to recommend me a cpu cooling RGB fan and a 5 pack RGB fans set. This is surely gonna be the last pc I'm gonna have for a while, so I figured I wanted colors>

Here's the build I'm looking for to change the fans
https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/cyz2RK

https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-geforce-rtx-4090-ti-rumored-to-feature-18176-cores-and-24gb-24gbps-memory

…

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Hi, I’m going to explain the most important details about the CPU.

How a CPU works:

The CPU is essentially the brain of your PC and it stands for the Central Processing Unit. There are many important factors that affect the CPUs such as clock speed, cache, number of cores, number of threads, architecture and IPC.

The cores are essentially a processing unit which processes its each own task. In reality a CPU can only process one instruction at a time so that’s when the cores come in to allow for multitasking. Many programs utilise the use of multiple cores nowadays too.

Threads are like virtual cores and generally serve the same purpose as cores.

Cache is some fast temporary storage for CPUs to store instructions and to fetch it quickly for data processing, they’re typically faster than RAM and permanent storage. The speed of the cache important because it needs to store and fetch instructions quickly to allow for faster data processing and less latency.

Clock speed is essentially the speed of each CPU core, it’s typically measured in billions of clocks per second hence the “GHz” unit. I’ve seen so many misunderstandings about clock speeds, some people say they don’t matter and some people compare when it isn’t needed. Truth is that clock speeds can affect CPU speeds because lets say if you overclock a CPU, you essentially increase it’s clock speed but architecture, cache, no of cores, IPC are still very important factors so clock speeds do partially mean something about a CPUs performance but not nearly everything.

IPC is how many instructions it can process per clock, this can also help in multi core use and single core use.

The architecture of each CPU is the most important factor IMO, each CPUs by different brands are designed differently by each brands so they’re going to have different architectures. This affects how each branded CPUs are going to work. For example the CPUs in your phones are going to be much more power efficient than your PC’s CPUs and a lot of it has to all do with the architecture itself.

Hence, this is why you can’t just compare paper specs of each CPUs. It’s always best to compare CPUs using benchmarks from the likes of TechSpot, Tom’s Hardware, Gamers Nexus, Hardware Unboxed, Puget Systems or any other reputable benchmarker as they actually test the performance of these in different scenarios. Sadly most benchmarks are not accurate as they use systematic benchmarks which are too generalised about a CPUs performance as they can vary drastically between software to software. They are some websites which outright just guess the CPU’s performance and they are some biased sites like UserBenchmark which are anti AMD in their CPU comparisons, literally search “is userbenchmark good?” and you’ll see everybody saying it’s biased. Even worse, r/Intel and r/Hardware has banned the use of this site. Now let’s get into the naming scheme of each CPUs.

Here is Intel’s naming scheme: https://www.intel.co.uk/content/www/uk/en/processors/processor-numbers.html

AMD’s naming scheme is quite a bit more complicated. Any 7000 series CPUs will have integrated graphics and by default. The “X3D” CPUs won’t be overclock able by default whilst the other CPUs will be. However AMDs X3D CPUs are typically best for gaming due to increased bandwidth for the CPU communication and increased cache. Any desktop CPU released prior to Ryzen 7000 will not have integrated graphics with the only exception of CPUs with a “G” in at the end of its name but that comes at a cost of less performance due to less cache.

How does each software utilise the CPU?

Games typically need at least four cores and is heavily reliant on single core speed. CAD cares very much about single core speeds. Content creation likes a combination of single core speed and multiple cores. This is just a general guide so it’s not the most accessible: I recommend you checking Puget Systems for benchmarks comparisons between different CPUs for productivity and as for gaming benchmarks, TechPowerUp is a convenient and reliable benchmark comparison website for that.

So what is better AMD vs Intel?

It really depends on the needs. AMD Ryzen 7000 series are generally better for CPU upgradability if you don’t want to replace the motherboard in the future as AMD promises AM5 motherboard support until 2025. Intel unfortunately will likely end LGA 1700 motherboard support this generation of Intel CPUs which means if you’re looking to upgrade to a future Intel CPUs, you’d need to replace the motherboard. However Intel 13th generation generally offers better productivity performance as they offer more cores, they’re also generally better price to performance too. AMD Ryzen 7000 series requires DDR5 RAM which is significantly more expensive and whilst in Intel’s CPUs you can go DDR5 or DDR4. Not to mention AMD motherboards are significantly more expensive. If you are looking to get a 13th gen CPU, be sure to either get a motherboard with BIOS flashback and that the motherboard’s website does have a BIOS version that can support these CPUs or get a 700 series chipset motherboard.

CPU recommendations:

If you’re looking for a budget friendly CPU, the best one to go for is the Ryzen 5 5600, it’s very cheap, motherboard prices are reasonable and there is no requirement for DDR5 RAM as this CPU only supports DDR4. If you want future upgradability go for AMD Ryzen 7000, 7600X and the X3D CPUs for pure gaming or 7700X and up for productivity. All current 13th generation are good enough for gaming and productivity, just make sure you’d get a motherboard with good VRMs and good cooling as these CPUs are power hungry and hot.

I hope this helps :)

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Yes it says in the title and you can save around $100 by not buying Windows. If you don't buy Windows, Windows would simply be unactivated. The only restrictions you'd have is not being to personalise and a "Activate Windows" watermark at the bottom right of your screen that's it. However there are some workarounds around those restrictions which I will talk about later. Everything else is normal as intended. Here is how you install Windows unactivated for free! Microsoft doesn't really care about people using unactivated Windows hence the little restrictions of using it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xckT9wlsjJs&ab_channel=NerdonaBudget (Works for Windows 10/11)

The workarounds (both work for Windows 10/11)

How to change wallpaper on unactivated Windows: https://www.minitool.com/news/how-to-change-wallpaper-on-unactivated-win10.html

How to get rid of "Activate Windows" watermark: https://softwarekeep.com/help-center/updated-how-to-get-rid-of-the-activate-windows-watermark

Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) is a very helpful that helps to solve GPU driver related problems. GeForce Experience and AMD Adrenalin don't actually fully uninstall drivers as they leaves bits of the uninstalled drivers on your PC and this is what sometimes causes problems. With DDU, they do a clean uninstall so every bit of the driver is wiped out from the PC.

Here is their guide on how to use DDU: https://www.wagnardsoft.com/content/DDU-Guide-Tutorial