Why do you want a high performance computer?

Gamers, video and graphics pros can provide very exciting answers.

My answer is very sober: full scans of Windows Defender take 2 hours! I wish it took only 3 minutes

What is YOUR answer?

Modern CPUs are fast it's storage drive speed where Windows Defender scanning can make the long scan time i'm sure if you have fast storage drive it will take less time to scan it.

Unfortunately your My Computer says nothing about your computer so any opinion will be subjective to an individual's desire. Myself an Intel Core i5 with 8GB or 16GB is quite sufficient but I do have one with an i7 CPU, but I'm not a gamer. I keep in mind that any drive/disk operation will take time, especially as the drives have gotten bigger in capacity and data transfer also takes time.

Personally i like to upgrade to what i can afford at the time, But if i can't afford what i need then i dont pull the trigger til i can.
For example if i was building a new PC today without being too specific, Id probably go with whatever top level i7/i9 was to be had, I'd also look at AMD ofc and compare between what they had similar vs intel, price vs performance and so on. 32gb RAM is pretty much the MIN id go with in a new system, A couple of times my 16gb has been seen short. Especially with new games taking a lil bit more. GPU wise, My 8GB card is sadly out of date, It was a mid to high end bridge card upon release and to be fair still holds well today, But still its bang average nowadays in terms of gaming, Which is mainly what i use my pc for, So MIN gpu ram for me going forward would be 10gb ideally 12+.
Mobo doesn't need to be top spec, But it does need to be a Z*** board if its Intel and then the equivalent for AMD, I do OC cpu/ram and without going to the crazy priced mobo's, you can get most features for a couple hundred quid(Not Dollars ).
Cooling, As i said i liked to OC, it isn't anything crazy or pushing mental numbers just because i like to do it. I run my 10700k at 5ghz since day one and i've not touched it since. Knowing that my series of i7 runs a bit hot id have went with a better air cooler, Something Noctua probably but i don't need liquid cooling personally and i don't need the faff, Albeit they're very nice looking and perform great, Just isn't what i need as id rather spend the budget else where.
M2 Drive and an SSD is essential.
Case wise, Whatever takes my fancy on the way it looks but also has to have the features i'd need/sufficient space for upgrades down the line etc.
PSU. With todays GPU wattages whatever the biggest/best was i could afford. Never cheap out on the backbone of you're system.


Albeit mostly rambling but my two cents

I do a lot of video processing - compressing video to H.265 (HEVC) takes a lot of horsepower. You could use a GPU for acceleration but you get the absolute best quality results using the far slower software compression methods which simply need brute CPU horsepower.

I also run a lot of VMs, both Hyper-V and VMware at the same time. It's not uncommon for me to have five or six VMs running at once so lots of RAM helps there.

Finally, I have a program I've written that is constantly under development. With each test pass it has to move around at least 30GB of data in small chunks at a time, and that can sometimes happen 20+ times a day. For that, SSDs are ideal for saving a lot of time.

My current system is an 11th gen Intel i7 with 128GB RAM and a pile of SSDs, but I'm really lusting after that 12th gen special edition i9 right now :)

I just want a bad @$$ PC even though I just play mine sweeper on it.
But really, I just want it to last longer. I don't upgrade too often.

My first build was a water-cooled intel i7-4790K back in 2015 (a year after it was released).




Then almost 2 years ago, I re-built it with an air-cooled AMD R9 3900X using the same case (I got tired of water-cooling )

@badrobot, you bring up a really good point - getting very current hardware will definitely help longevity.

I figured out over the years that if I spend a bit of extra money up front, that cost is not wasted if I intend to hold onto the system for the long term. In other words, I'll still have a very useful system for several years longer than if I had gone a cheaper route initially.

hsehestedt said:

@badrobot, you bring up a really good point - getting very current hardware will definitely help longevity.

I figured out over the years that if I spend a bit of extra money up front, that cost is not wasted if I intend to hold onto the system for the long term. In other words, I'll still have a very useful system for several years longer than if I had gone a cheaper route initially.

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You can also save in the long run if you build your own PC. You can use the same case, same PSU, same drive and even same GPU if it is still performing. The money you save on those components can go to a better CPU, motherboard or extra RAM for higher performance.

mines mostly for gaming (ffx 14, borderlands 3, civ 6), watching tv, and surfing/learning.

Haydon said:

What is YOUR answer?

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My answer: I don't. I have no need for a high performance computer.
My "production" PC is an 8th gen i5 that was an upgrade from a 1st gen i7 that had hardware problems.
My "test" PC is a 10th gen i3 that replaced a 4th gen i7 'cause I wanted to be able to go to Win11.
All of them have been overkill for what I've used them for.

hsehestedt said:

I figured out over the years that if I spend a bit of extra money up front, that cost is not wasted if I intend to hold onto the system for the long term. In other words, I'll still have a very useful system for several years longer than if I had gone a cheaper route initially.

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Rich corporations allegedly replace their computers every 3 years. I wonder what is reasonable for us paupers. 6 years?

Haydon said:

Rich corporations allegedly replace their computers every 3 years. I wonder what is reasonable for us paupers. 6 years?

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If components dont start failing i go about 7 years between upgrades.

fx 8350 (2013) > ryzen 5 3600 (2020)
gtx 660Ti (2013) > rtx 2060 super (2020)

dates are when i purchsed

@FreeBooter @Berton

What I like very much about Windows Defender is that it sometimes runs unnoticeably in the background, and then generates a notification 'Your device was scanned 8 times ... '

What I don't like about Windows Defender is that an on demand scan automatically gets top priority which slows down your computer to the point that you practically can't work on your computer anymore for the duration of the scan. For a full scan that can be hours!

On demand scans ought to have a setting that you can toggle between 'top priority' (in case of an infection) and 'run in background' (that can run as long as it takes, no problem)

My guiding star is also "By best you can afford now as it will be actual longer" but it's also subject to conditions like finding a rally good deal to upgrade, monetary status at that time (worst bottleneck) and the last but not least how powerful PC I actually need, that's usually some mid performance system. I do game some times but I'm not crazy for some super fast FPS or resolutions. 1080p and 60FPS is fine with me.
I always put together my own desktop PCs and prefer upgrading part by part until it can't be upgraded any more to matter. I probably have at lest some screws from my 1984 PC.
Last PC prior to Ryzen was AMD FX6350, upgraded from Phenom II x4 965 and Rx280 GPU.
Jumping over to Ryzen which was major upgrade (and expense. CPU +MB+RAM)
1600x > 1700x > 2700x > 3700x.
FX6350(very overclocked) I had for about 5 years to 1600x brought me 4 times performance, other ones was much more gradual 10 to 15% between each step.
Rx 289 I kept until it's sudden demise, replaced by Rx 460 and almost immediately swapped to present Rx 570x. With advent of SSDs I also kept on upgrading adding more and larger ones and with price drop of M.2 NVMe SSDs upgraded/added from first 250GB to 500GB and a 1TB drives. Still stuck with a 2TB HDD but as NVME prices drop will upgrade that too.
All HDDs from past 5-7 years that are still 100% healthy (about 6 of them ranging from 500GB to 2TB) I keep for backups.
Main parts from FX 6350 system I kept for while as a reserve but later one (couple of years ago) I completed and gave to a friend's kids. They are still happy with it. Got an oldish laptop instead.
For this present PC I plan to upgrade only CPU to R7 5800x or even R9 5900x if right deal presents itself which should last me next couple of years until truly new generation of Ryzen gets normal and then another cycle can begin.

Haydon said:

@FreeBooter @Berton

What I like very much about Windows Defender is that it sometimes runs unnoticeably in the background, and then generates a notification 'Your device was scanned 8 times ... '

What I don't like about Windows Defender is that an on demand scan automatically gets top priority which slows down your computer to the point that you practically can't work on your computer anymore for the duration of the scan. For a full scan that can be hours!

On demand scans ought to have a setting that you can toggle between 'top priority' (in case of an infection) and 'run in background' (that can run as long as it takes, no problem)

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You can try the attached batch script to Change Windows Defender Antivirus Maximum CPU Usage for a Scan in Windows 10 and Windows 11.

So my emails will be zippy

A Guy

Haydon said:

Rich corporations allegedly replace their computers every 3 years. I wonder what is reasonable for us paupers. 6 years?

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I've had to dramatically change my upgrade frequency, but in my young and crazy days I would replace my desktop and laptop every 6 months .

Haydon said:

Rich corporations allegedly replace their computers every 3 years. I wonder what is reasonable for us paupers. 6 years?

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I have worked for some of the richest corporations in Oil and Gas business in UK and I can assure you they do not replace pcs every 3 years.

I am using a device right now for a UK major that is 5 years old and we are having a battle to get then upgraded.

In part, that is because UK prices are much higher. Guys in the US do not realise how lucky they are on hardware costs compared to the rest of the world (they forget they are only 5% of the world's population).

The other reason is most IT depts in UK define a standard pc and take for ever to upgrade the software (if it ain"t broke, don't fix it mentality).

In general, most company devices are classified according to job needs. Vast majority get a basic low-mid range end pc that is ok for surfing, email and office and apps not needing high power.

The only guys that get a powerful device are the chief managers (who rarely need Surface Pro high end but image is important (to them lol)), or CAD operators who get high end work stations.

Even the engineers, grudgingly get an upgrade to the base end devices e.g. upgrade to 16 GB RAM but ask for an i7 (dream on).
.
I bet the majority of users here have more powerful pcs than their office device.

FreeBooter said:

You can try the attached batch script to Change Windows Defender Antivirus Maximum CPU Usage for a Scan in Windows 10 and Windows 11.

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Thanks, but is the script safe to run? Where did you get it from? Sorry, but I have to ask.

Haydon said:

Thanks, but is the script safe to run? Where did you get it from? Sorry, but I have to ask.

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Pretty sure he made it. when ran it says made by @FreeBooter (i just ran it myself), and also, its a batch file. after you download it, right click it and choose edit if you want to see the commands in it without running it