Core 2 Duo E8400

[ilostmyjello]

Will an old dell opliplex with a core 2 duo with an ssd installed be good for media? Like streaming movies and Netflix and what not

[Columbo]

That is a difficult question to answer. No. It would not be good. A 4560 would be a good solution for what you are looking for. 

[3 Lions]

Even with an SSD it's going to be slow, that's expected of a 10 year old dual core CPU. 

[manikyath]

it wont be good.. but it'll at least be capable of watching netflix. (dont bother with 4K tho )

[ilostmyjello]

4 minutes ago, Columbo said:

That is a difficult question to answer. No. It would not be good. A 4560 would be a good solution for what you are looking for. 

What if a discrete ati card was added

[3 Lions]

Just now, ilostmyjello said:

What if a discrete ati card was added

It would still be a slow experience I'm afraid. 

[Columbo]

A waste my friend. It's too old and lacks the instruction sets for streaming. Another good option the 2200G from AMD. They had that APU on sale for as low as $65. 

[Lord Letto]

I think the CPU should be OK for watching movies & stuff, the GPU is what would make a bigger diffrence.

My brother got a 11-12 year old HP prebuilt with a Core 2 Quad Q6600 & added a GTX 750 & it plays World of Warcraft OK & capable of watching movies & Netflix.

[3 Lions]

2 minutes ago, Lord Letto said:

I think the CPU should be OK for watching movies & stuff, the GPU is what would make a bigger diffrence.

My brother got a 11-12 year old HP prebuilt with a Core 2 Quad Q6600 & added a GTX 750 & it plays World of Warcraft OK & capable of watching movies & Netflix.

At least with the Q6600 though it's quad core, what we are talking about here is a 10 year old dual core. 

[Lord Letto]

2 minutes ago, LinusTechTipsFanFromDarlo said:

At least with the Q6600 though it's quad core, what we are talking about here is a 10 year old dual core. 

I still think it would be ok for basic tasks/media:

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core2-Quad-Q6600-vs-Intel-Core2-Duo-E8400/1980vs2720

while the Q6600 is a quad core that means better quad & multicore performance, the E8400 is a newer & clocked higher with higher single core performance.

 

if the E8400 is a no go, a quad core equivilent could be had for cheap, a Q6600 or Q8200/8300/8400 can be had on eBay for around $10-11 US or less, add a $20ish(+shipping) GPU and I think it should be OK.

for GPU, here's a Radeon HD 8570 for $18.99 US: https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F183525455366

 

Q8400 for $5.99 Canadian or best offer: https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.ca%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F264057465070

[3 Lions]

Just now, Lord Letto said:

I still think it would be ok for basic tasks/media:

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core2-Quad-Q6600-vs-Intel-Core2-Duo-E8400/1980vs2720

while the Q6600 is a quad core that means better quad & multicore performance, the E8400 is a newer & clocked higher with higher single core performance.

 

if the E8400 is a no go, a quad core equivilent could be had for cheap, a Q6600 or Q8200/8300/8400 can be had on eBay for around $10-11 US or less, add a $20ish(+shipping) GPU and I think it should be OK.

for GPU, here's a Radeon HD 8570 for $18.99 US: https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F183525455366

 

Q8400 for $5.99 Canadian or best offer: https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.ca%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F264057465070

At this day and age any LGA 775 CPU should not be considered I'm afraid, they are just too old to be worthy of anything. 

[Lord Letto]

5 minutes ago, LinusTechTipsFanFromDarlo said:

At this day and age any LGA 775 CPU should not be considered I'm afraid, they are just too old to be worthy of anything. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Netflix-compatible_devices

 

Microsoft Windows:[35]
Hardware Requirement: x86 or x64 (64-bit mode used by Internet Explorer only) 1.6-gigahertz (GHz) or higher processor; 512MB RAM
Microsoft Silverlight player: Windows XPService Pack 3 or later. Compatible browsers are Internet Explorer 6 (or higher), Firefox 3 (or higher), Google Chrome 4 (or higher).
HTML5 Player: Windows XP Service Pack 2 or later. Compatible browsers are Internet Explorer 11* (or higher), Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome 37 (or higher).
*Note: Using HTML5 player with Internet Explorer 11 (or higher) requires Windows 8.1 or later. 4K playback requires an 4K display, a Intel Kaby Lake or later generation processor, Windows 10 or later, and either Microsoft Edge or the UWP Netflix app.

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD - Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5 GHz Quad-Core Processor	$89.99 @ Newegg
Motherboard	MSI - B350M GAMING PRO Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$49.89 @ OutletPC
Memory	GeIL - EVO SPEAR 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR4-2400 Memory	$49.99 @ Newegg
Storage	Team - L5 LITE 3D 120 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$19.99 @ Newegg
Storage	Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$39.99 @ Monoprice
Case	Rosewill - FBM-X1 MicroATX Mini Tower Case	$26.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	Corsair - CXM (2015) 450 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply	$19.99 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$336.83
	Mail-in rebates	-$40.00
	Total	$296.83
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-11-24 17:07 EST-0500

 

[3 Lions]

Just now, Lord Letto said:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Netflix-compatible_devices

 

Microsoft Windows:[35]
Hardware Requirement: x86 or x64 (64-bit mode used by Internet Explorer only) 1.6-gigahertz (GHz) or higher processor; 512MB RAM
Microsoft Silverlight player: Windows XPService Pack 3 or later. Compatible browsers are Internet Explorer 6 (or higher), Firefox 3 (or higher), Google Chrome 4 (or higher).
HTML5 Player: Windows XP Service Pack 2 or later. Compatible browsers are Internet Explorer 11* (or higher), Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome 37 (or higher).
*Note: Using HTML5 player with Internet Explorer 11 (or higher) requires Windows 8.1 or later. 4K playback requires an 4K display, a Intel Kaby Lake or later generation processor, Windows 10 or later, and either Microsoft Edge or the UWP Netflix app.

Yes but you are still left with a socket that is around 17 years old, LGA 775 was launched in 2001. 

[Lord Letto]

I tweeted Timmy Joe about this, this was his response:

"That's interesting. I stream Netflix on a Cherry trail atom azule mini PC. It probably has hardware encoders built in for streaming. That might be worth looking in to on old dual cores. Leave me with it"

[ilostmyjello]

3 hours ago, Lord Letto said:

I still think it would be ok for basic tasks/media:

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core2-Quad-Q6600-vs-Intel-Core2-Duo-E8400/1980vs2720

while the Q6600 is a quad core that means better quad & multicore performance, the E8400 is a newer & clocked higher with higher single core performance.

 

if the E8400 is a no go, a quad core equivilent could be had for cheap, a Q6600 or Q8200/8300/8400 can be had on eBay for around $10-11 US or less, add a $20ish(+shipping) GPU and I think it should be OK.

for GPU, here's a Radeon HD 8570 for $18.99 US: https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F183525455366

 

Q8400 for $5.99 Canadian or best offer: https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.ca%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F264057465070

Just ordered that core 2 quad.. literally 8 bucks USD so I mean why not

[Lord Letto]

from someone on reddit:

"

The reason is simple:

* Netflix is always adding security to the handshake and encryption schema to make it harder to steal content.  Netflix id dropping support for all 32 bit processors in 2019 and plans to stop serving content to them on 2020.
* About 90-95% of Netflix's users have at least 720p TV's or similar devices.  Supporting SD resolutions is taking up resources that Netflix wants to phase out. 

Basically most streaming services, including Netflix, will be dropping support or out right blocking older systems in the  next couple of years.

FYI: [Here is a list of devices](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Netflix-compatible_devices) that can stream Netfix.  The Nintendo Wii can still stream Netflix.  The Wii has 0.088 gb of RAM, 0.729 gz single core 32 bit PPC processor, and the GPU has 0.003gb of RAM.  Also Netflix is dropping support for the Wii in late January."

[Spotty]

9 minutes ago, Lord Letto said:

The reason is simple:

* Netflix is always adding security to the handshake and encryption schema to make it harder to steal content.  Netflix id dropping support for all 32 bit processors in 2019 and plans to stop serving content to them on 2020.

AFAIK all LGA775 CPUs are 64bit. Intel hasn't had a 32bit CPU since what, the Pentium 4 around 15+ years ago?

[DogKnight]

Earlier this year, I used a E8400 system in my garage. Used it for watching media. It had an SSD and a GTX 750. Was fine for media and streaming at 1080p. Even some basic gaming. However I purchased a new processor for it, a Q9505 (this is a Core 2 Quad at 2.83ghz). It was only $30 AUD delivered. This made a pretty big performance increase. If you have an older system with the E8400 already, along with a SSD and reasonable graphic card, then its worth upgrading the CPU and it will do the trick.

If you need to upgrade too many components then, see what you can re-use from the system (e.g. Case, PSU, HDD), and buy a few new, low end parts to give the computer life for a few more years. 

[Lord Letto]

from someone else on reddit:

"Have an E8400 in another PC, and it does play Netflix alright. But CPU usage does tend to get high, and it isn't ideal for multi tasking. It plays 1080p fine on Youtube (Netflix website is locked to 720p). The quad core would fair a bit better. I'm not sure what codec the Netflix app uses, but for Firefox and Chrome, it would be the standard VP9/VP8/H264 set. It shouldn't be a problem for now at any rate. But the 2200G or equivalent would be a good upgrade for a media PC."