Will COMPUTER SPEED ever overwhelm SOFTWARE NEEDS?

Your CPU isn't to blame for your problems, I'd try adding more memory. Get some really fast memory and don't get any less than 1GB, 2GB if you can...

Also try defragging your hard drive(s) and restarting more often.

I have a top of the line Dell XPS 600 with 2GB of ram and I run a few instances of visual studio 2005, sql server 2005, and all the other normal programs and never have an issues. CPU is only 3.4...

My home machine has 1GB of ram and a 3.6 P4, and it runs A LOT slower than my work pc.

 

As computers get more powerfull, programmers stop optimising their code, thus I believe new programs are less efficient then before. Sort of like the cars get more powerfull, but also heavier, thus the actual performance does not change that much.

 

Get more RAM... over 1GB. Things go pretty quickly.

Like Bazaarino mentioned, restarting your computer once a week or so helps unclog things.

 

Or, as budgets tighten, the payoff for having well-written code is nil.

 

For the everyday Word and Excel users.... no.

Software will always have more demand of hardware power, primarily due to the fact that software will do more than just display text. Programmers always need that many more features and thus, hardware support is not enough.

Take for example PC games. The art, textures and artificial intelligence programmed into the software need powerful processors to calculate how all the elements that make the game, transition smoothly on the visual output. The demand is so high, that graphic cards(the hardare that takes all that computer information and arranges it for you to see on the monitor) have processors more powerful than the early day Intel 486DX4 processors. In so many words, graphics are calculated lines, fills, draw and redraws.

I'll take this one step further. NASA needs massive supercomputers to run their data. Not just for Shuttle missions, but for all the data needed for virtual analysis of planet surfaces, none of which could be run on a DELL high end PC or the fastest Macintosh.

 

What OS are you using? Do you have a hardware or software firewall? Are you using an AV program as well as an anti-spyware program?

Viruses and spyware will cripple even the fastest computer, so it's important to keep it scrubbed.

Two excellent freebies are:

Anti-Virus: http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1
Anti-Spyware: http://www.lavasoftusa.com/ (Ad-Aware)

If you are running Norton anything, you'd do your PC a huge favor by getting rid of it and putting on AVG from Grisoft.

 

It's not about Processor, or Ram in most cases. Most new computers come with plenty of RAM.

Why your DELL XPS system runs faster than your home system probably has to do with the performance of the hard disk, the speed and number of buses on the system, peripheral data transfer rate, and a seriously more kick-arse video card.

Since you said its a new PC, I'll assume you have at least 500 megs of RAM which is MORE than enough if all you're running is some basic web applications like a few browsers, an email client, maybe Excel and Word .... Anyway, you'll probably notice a significant speed increase by going with a top-o-the-line video card.

With that said, before you do anything, update all of your drivers. Key ones are your NIC (wireless or wired network card), video card, sound card, monitor driver (most people don't install this because it isn't necessary to see video, that doesn't mean it shouldn't be installed), and any other peripherals including anything connected via USB. Then go to your PC manufacturers web site, search for the drivers for your computer, and look for any firmware updates for the motherboard, bios (not necessary for speed but nice nonetheless), hard disk controller(s), and hard disks. If there are any system board driver updates for things like the USB controller, a chipset update, anything ... get those installed.

A little background, a driver is the piece of software that tells your components how to communicate with the rest of the system ... when the companies who manufacture these components fix bugs or write more efficient logic for these devices, it can typically result in better performance. Firmware is the internal software/code that runs these devices.

Once you've handled the drivers/firmware side of things. As was suggested here, perform a defrag. Your hard drive write data in small blocks, usually a few hundred bytes in size. As you move, copy, delete, add, and modify files and folders ... these blocks get moved around. Given enough time, a spreadsheet (for example) that you have on your desktop may be physically spread out all over your hard drive in terms of where the physical data is sitting, and retrieving the full file so you can open it up may take many times longer than necessary because the heads on the drive must look all over the place for these sections of your file. Now, imagine what happens when you try to launch a program like Photoshop where hundreds of files are opening so that the program can launch. A defrag searches your disk and ideally takes all of the scattered pieces and puts them right next to each other for quicker retrieval. Depending on the size of your hard drive and a few other factors, a defrag can take hours (I once had to defrag a 1 gig drive that was 98% fragmented using a crappy computer, it took 6 days)

If you've performed all of this and your system is still not running where you want it to run, update your anti-spy/adware software then go hardware hunting.

For hard drives, you want a serial ATA drive that does at least 7200 RPM and has 16MB of cache. Everyone tends to buy quantity over quality when it comes to hard drives. Take a smaller drive, but a quality one and you'll be MUCH happier. Also, buy internal if you have the space inside the PC. They're cheaper, faster, quieter, and won't fall off your desk and die a horrible death. I'm a huge fan of Seagate drives, I avoid Maxtor more than I would avoid bubonic plague, and Western Digital is kind of "middle of the road".

Video cards ... don't skimp. This SHOULD be the single most expensive component in your computer with the exception of the monitor. You want a quality 3D card from a known manufacturer with as much memory as you can get. If you can get one with a built in heatsink, good. A fan is better. Not having either is unacceptable.

Sound .. irrelevant (IMHO). Onboard sound should be sufficient for 99% of people's needs. A better card will provide more options and better sound, but won't affect system performance.

Operating System. There are a thousand ways to "tune" Windows. If you have more than 6 icons in your system tray (that little area next to the clock on the far right of your task bar) .... you need to look at what's running and determine if its necessary. Each one of those icons represents a piece of software that is running on your system, using up resources, right now. There are also things called Services (if you're on Win XP Pro or 2K Pro) which are pieces of software that automatically start running as soon as your computer is turned on (regardless of whether or not anyone has actually logged in). Many of these services are necessary for your computer to communicate properly with your local area network, some of them are necessary for software like Microsoft Office to run correctly, and a boatload of them can be turned off without you missing a thing. Turning them off ("disable"ing them) frees up the system resources they were using while running.

Well, that's about all I have time for right now ... It may seem daunting, and for sure, finding the drivers for your system, installing them, rebooting after each one, and then the headaches that go along with installing firmware are quite time consuming and may lead to migranes, but in the end its a once-a-year thing that should keep you happy with your system for another 12 months or so. If anyone has any specific questions, PM me.

Bill in Brooklyn

 

If you multi task and jump back and forth between real memory hogging applications, get more ram. Otherwise the extra Ram is pointless. Ram is an acronym for Random Access Memory, it just caches program data. Enough rambling.

Another thing that will improve your performance is a 10,000 RPM HD, they currently don't hold as much as lower RPM HD but there is a noticable gain in loading speed.

EDIT: Also like to add that BILL knows what he's talking about.

 

What OS are you using? Windows XP with Service Pack 2 has a decent firewall built in and enabled by default. Comp USA sells small, yet adequate hardware firewalls from DLink and Linksys that are up to the task of keeping broadband crap off of your pc.

 

At least that largely rules out your machine being loaded with viruses and trojans pouring in from the internet.

3GHz with a decent ~>1GB RAM should run like a raped ape, unless you have a Compaq, HP or something similarly craptacular.

 

Right click on the My Computer icon on your desktop, then click on Properties.

 

There you go. XP doesn't run worth a crap on 256 MB of RAM. Time to drop a gig in!

 

That = Key

Also, system services can be severely tweaked for maximum performance. I have a stripped down XP laptop running on <1Ghz processor and 128megs of RAM. It runs fine because I disabled/tweaked many of the system services.