Is a Pentium BAD for Internet speed?

Question

I just bought a computer with the following specs:

Gateway 2000 E-3200 with a 200 MHz Pentium CPU, 64 MB RAM

I got it mostly for gams and stuff but can I run an internet connection off this? Would it be slow or would it be OK?

Answer 1

Slow Internet speed is bad for Internet speed.

Answer 2

there are yes and no answers to your question. alot of people think because they can afford a new machine that the people with say like you, are "idiots" the size of processor has nothing to do with useing the net. i had a 233 that i worked on that was faster than my athlon XP processor system. dial-up will be slow no matter what computer you have. you get into DSL and cable, now this is where the 200 is really going to be fast. i did a comparison with the 233 that only had a 9gig HDD with my athlon XP that had 160gig HDD. because the 233 had such a smaller drive, this is what made it so fast. now if you are wanting to play games, you'll have a hard time with the possible lock-up on the system and such because of very little ram. the new game you can't play on it, but you can play the game from yahoo and even if you play in card league with euchre and such. great internet machine but actually a terible game machine that uses alot of graphics. if you get online with this sytem, go and download "firefox" this will really speed up the browsing on your system while on the net...have fun and don't let people get you down about it being old.

Answer 3

Internet speed is going to be more related to your connection than the actual speed of your computer.

However, with that system, the processor speed and memory are definately going to slow you down online. As well as for most games.

If you have the ability to add more memory, that is going to be your best bet for speeding up your internet experience. Or, if you can spend more money on it, look into getting a brand new machine. The low end ones can run you ~250, but will be magnitudes greater than what you have right now. Take a look at www.dell.com if thats an option for you.

Answer 4

No, it should useful for an internet connection. But gotta tell the games should not be very big.

By the way the Intel Pentium you speak of is a Pentium II. I still use a Pentium II at work, but then I have a very high speed connection.

Answer 5

You *do* understand that this PC you got is like, well, 5-years old? So any games you run will have to be 5-years old or older?

You can surf the net no problem, but you MAY have a little problem going full speed downloading stuff from newsgroups or filesharing networks and such. I used to have a 400 MHz machine next to me (the monitor and P/S died) and that one got online okay, surfs okay, even downloads stuff okay, but not as fast as the 2.6 GHz P4 that replaced it.

Answer 6

Sorry that baby is a dinosaur!!!
But that being said you can use it to surf the net though I wouldn't try too much more with it If you look in your local papers you could get one that is twice as good for less than $200 (but I'm talking Australia)

Answer 7

Dialup will be fine, however, high speed or cable Internet will be compromised by the slower hardware in the PC.
...not to mention the early version of Windows & IE it must have.

regards,
Philip T

Answer 8

that computer sux like nothing else, pentium is a good processor as long as it is a P4 with at least 800 mhz

Answer 9

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but... that PC is very old and slow. I hope you got it for free.

Answer 10

It will NOT RUN NEWER GAMES but it WILL GET ONLINE