Specs for poker PC? - Beginning Poker Questions

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Specs for poker PC?

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01-28-2015 , 06:58 PM

WereBeer

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Oct 2013 Posts: 10,756

My PC runs HM2 like ass, so I think it's time to upgrade, it's about 3 years old anyway.

What do I actually need for online poker, HM2 + database and the occasional undemanding strategy game?

Obviously a decent sized SSHD is a must. What about RAM, graphics cards etc?

I don't have the skills or desire to build a computer myself, I'm going to go to a shop and get them to do it for me, but I want to have some idea before I turn up there and go "I dunno lol" to whatever questions they ask me.

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01-28-2015 , 07:14 PM

sixfour

should be called sevenfour

Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 75,468

there's literally hundreds of threads on this. decent size ssd, go mostly processing power, ram's not that important and graphics card can be cheap, maybe even integrated

edit - thought this was in CTH, look there

Last edited by sixfour; 01-28-2015 at 07:27 PM.

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01-28-2015 , 07:18 PM

Woej10

journeyman

Join Date: Nov 2014 Posts: 297

How many hands are you talking here? I am surprised even a 3 year old PC struggles with database drive info tool. Your database would have to be huge before your disk becomes a problem and most processers can handle some heavy duty stuff before grinding to a halt. Is it a fairly basic system you got there now or something a little meatier than entry level stuff?

Maybe I should go read some of the threads sixfour is talking about to get an idea though.

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01-28-2015 , 07:40 PM

WereBeer

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Join Date: Oct 2013 Posts: 10,756

Quote:

Originally Posted by sixfour

OK thanks, will check CTH.

Processing power is CPU, right?

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01-28-2015 , 07:40 PM

WereBeer

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Join Date: Oct 2013 Posts: 10,756

Quote:

Originally Posted by Woej10

I think the problem is not having a SSHD.

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01-28-2015 , 07:41 PM

Fatboy54

Pooh-Bah

Join Date: Jul 2011 Posts: 3,876

On anything lacking a bit of CPU oomph HM runs like a snail. I've got a 4 year old basic acer laptop and it take forever to load.

On my Dell Vostro though - it goes like a train. I think it's more CPU than RAM dependent, but take that with a huge pinch of salt, because my geek hardware years are long gone.

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01-28-2015 , 07:48 PM

Woej10

journeyman

Join Date: Nov 2014 Posts: 297

Quote:

Originally Posted by WereBeer

I think the problem is not having a SSHD.

I think it's an SSD you are after not a SSHD.. but anyway.. there are indeed a ton of threads on this. I just googled and there are loads...

You could try these opitimisation tips to try get the best out of your existing kit though..
http://forums.holdemmanager.com/mana...ease-tips.html

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01-28-2015 , 08:28 PM

TeamTrousers

talks the talk

Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 12,894

poker specs, you say?

Spoiler:

Seriously though, there's a ton of threads all over the place about this, not just CTH.

Also, try clearing out all the crap off your PC and then see how it runs; three years old is still probably gonna be decent enough, if you just keep it for poker only, and do all your other internet stuff on another machine so it doesn't clog up.

Or get the nice shiny new pc, just keep THAT exclusively for poker, and play other games, watch porn or whatever on your 3 year old machine

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01-28-2015 , 09:31 PM

drewwwy

journeyman

Join Date: Mar 2013 Posts: 229

Are we talking a desktop? Get yourself some decent size monitors. A good mouse, and one of these desktop punching bags for when you go on tilt. LOL

Last edited by drewwwy; 01-28-2015 at 09:41 PM.

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01-28-2015 , 10:44 PM

#10

The Bukafax

veteran

Join Date: Jan 2010 Posts: 2,520

Solid state hard drive wont improve speeds. If I were you just take your old PC in to the shop and spend a couple hundred on a new processor. Really all you need.

I would recommend you to do it yourself as shops are scam artists and charge excessive amounts for a 10 minute job.

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01-28-2015 , 11:38 PM

#11

DougL

Too helpful for this post

Join Date: Sep 2002 Posts: 21,810

I have a 4 year old (5?) Core2Duo machine running two 24" screens and HM2 runs fine on that. It either has a slow SATA1 or a slow SATA2 drive. I'm amazed a decent 3 year old machine has any issue. You could buy a low end i7 machine for cheap these days, and nothing you could do pokerwise would make a blip on a real computer. The idea that you need a SSD to run a poker database is amazing and silly.

I have a decent i7 box that I replaced the old Core2Duo machine, and poker doesn't care. Other stuff I do is amazingly faster. It makes me wonder what viruses and adware you're currently running.

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01-29-2015 , 03:51 AM

#12

Gunblade

grinder

Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 447

While I don't have HM2, the idea of a database tool struggling with what is at the least, nowadays, a dual core processor and faster, standard hdd's (compared to what it was years ago) is ridiculous. Such a tool shouldn't have a problem running on a single core, old school Pentium let along i5/i7's.

Either software is optimized like ****, your PC is dragged down by far too much background tasks or HM2 is a intensive, analytical tool that requires quantum processing to compute every possible scenario that could happen in absolute real time while the hand is in play.

I doubt the last scenario but hey I don't use it so maybe it does...

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01-29-2015 , 06:40 AM

#13

ArtyMcFly

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Dec 2014 Posts: 13,256

It's pretty much impossible to buy a new PC that can't run HM2 efficiently. SSD drives will help things run smoothly if you have a very large database, but you don't have to splash out on a super-fast gaming PC.
I recently bought the cheapest laptop available on Amazon and it's much more powerful than the desktop PC I've used for the last 4 years.

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01-29-2015 , 11:10 AM

#14

thunderbolts

Pooh-Bah

Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 3,596

+1 to CTH

We have tons of threads on this. Most of the recent ones set out the basics. Otherwise you'll still get the advice there.

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01-29-2015 , 11:25 AM

#15

TheAfterman

journeyman

Join Date: Jan 2015 Posts: 253

Please don't go to a shop. You will get far more for your money online. If you are in US/Canada head to sites like newegg or tigerdirect. If you are in UK maybe Ebuyer or Novatech. Ebay is a good option too if you are willing to sift through all the listings.

You will save minimum 10% over going to PC World/Currys/Best Buy or your local specialist store.

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01-29-2015 , 05:47 PM

#16

WereBeer

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Oct 2013 Posts: 10,756

OK, thanks all for the feedback.

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01-29-2015 , 05:59 PM

#17

Land O Lakes

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 8,247

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Bukafax

Solid state hard drive wont improve speeds. If I were you just take your old PC in to the shop and spend a couple hundred on a new processor. Really all you need.

SSD will improve speed. You can have the fastest processor in the world, but it can only retrieve data from your HD as fast as the hard drive allows. Putting the operating system and HM on an SSD will improve performance immensely. Huge databases are slow on SATAs especially offline database queries.

Also, if he has an old computer, he's not going to improve cpu speed that much because he'll be limited to a small upgrade due to socket changes, and he'll get zero speed improvement with Holdem Manager.

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01-29-2015 , 06:20 PM

#18

DougL

Too helpful for this post

Join Date: Sep 2002 Posts: 21,810

I have a like 6 year old laptop that I used to run PT1 on. With a half a million hand DB and playing 20 tables, that computer couldn't really handle HUD. I can't really recall any computer since that had an issue.

Sure, SSD will make tons of things faster on a given computer. It can make booting a joy. However, it just seems amazing that any computer from the last 2-3 years is going to care about anything that PT2 or HEM2 do -- the underlying computer is so fast.

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01-29-2015 , 06:37 PM

#19

Land O Lakes

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 8,247

Quote:

Originally Posted by DougL

Sure, SSD will make tons of things faster on a given computer. It can make booting a joy. However, it just seems amazing that any computer from the last 2-3 years is going to care about anything that PT2 or HEM2 do -- the underlying computer is so fast.

Any modest gaming computer will do very well, but you're still limited to 10K rpm (usually 7200) on the hard drive. If you're trying to open up a huge database, you'll be waiting. Gaming computers are strong on graphics and cpu because they don't require accessing tons of information from the hard drive.

Any serious player should get a modest gaming computer with an SSD.

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01-29-2015 , 08:25 PM

#20

Syon

grinder

Join Date: Jun 2009 Posts: 411

On the topic of PC riggs...

I use PT3. I tried switching to PT4, but the HUD ran very slowly and was always behind. I want to try getting PT4 to work again since PT3 has been dropped months ago.

Hopefully this works.

I'm looking to reformat and partitioning a(n) (old school) hard drive to use as a data drive, and reserve the fastest partition for poker tracker data. I know I want to put the PostgreSQL on it, but I'm wondering if I should put my hand histories on it as well.

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01-29-2015 , 08:27 PM

#21

SuperGreg

enthusiast

Join Date: Dec 2014 Posts: 53

You've likely got a completely fragmented hard drive, you have 300 browser plugins, and you have so much crap installed that auto-starts on boot that you're out of RAM to run your browser with 40 tabs let alone poker software.

No three year old PC runs bad because any of the components are too slow, unless you are running bleeding edge games at max video settings and want 60 fps.

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01-30-2015 , 06:08 AM

#22

TheAfterman

journeyman

Join Date: Jan 2015 Posts: 253

Fragmented hard drives aren't so much of a problem these days as windows has mostly figured out how to do that properly. Unless the hard drive is >~75% full or was at some point in it's history you should be ok.

Definitely look at the amount of crap you have installed though. If you are running windows 8 you can do a "refresh" which will work wonders. (Cleans out the registry which often the main culprit on a slow running system). You will need to back up your PT/HM databases before hand though and it takes a fair bit of time to do the refresh, reinstall apps etc.

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01-31-2015 , 04:26 AM

#23

Arjen

grinder

Join Date: Jan 2015 Posts: 672

Pff, i just started playing on a brand new (and thus fresh installed) acer Aspire E14 laptop with intel celeron N2840 processor. That is not really sufficient... Party poker and holdem manager seem to make life hard for it. It works, but not comfortable. Itll be a pleasure to be backhome at my desktop with I5 processor.

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01-31-2015 , 11:26 AM

#24

thunderbolts

Pooh-Bah

Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 3,596

To echo what's been said by a number of posters, and to contradict what one or two have said, an SSD is one of the components that will make the most difference to your poker experience. If you don't run tracking software or a HUD then fine, but otherwise it's definitely the outlay (even if all you do is spend $100 on a small EVO 840 for HEM/PT etc). Of course, putting your OS + poker clients + tracking software on the SSD is better. But even that shouldn't require much space. 120Gb SSDs are dirt cheap now.

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01-31-2015 , 11:35 AM

#25

thunderbolts

Pooh-Bah

Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 3,596

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arjen

To be fair, that's not really a proper modern CPU. Have a look at what it benchmarks against: economy processors like a Pentium E2180 or a Core2Duo E4300. And bear in mind that ranking is only low-midrange processors. None of the good stuff that you might install in your desktop. The E2180, for example, is almost 8 years old now. EIGHT. And it wasn't even designed to be a top-end processor when it was launched.

I wouldn't describe the E14 as a laptop suitable for poker (at least not multitabling with a HUD); it's closer to a netbook or tablet designed for light web browsing and a bit of Office.

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