Best hardware changes that most improve computer performance? [closed]

Question

What the the best Hardware changes/upgrades that can be performed on Any Computer that will give the Best Performance Increase?

Answer 1

Add RAM/Memory - Generally, if your computer has more RAM in it then the Operating System doesn't have to use the Page File as much and can keep your programs in memory. This allows for faster performance since RAM accesses much faster than a Hard Drive.

Most often this is considered the most significant upgrade someone can perform on their computer to increase it's overall performance.

The amount of RAM/Memory that will give you the best performance benefit before you don't get any gain will be different for every Operating System. Below are a couple perceived "sweet spots" for some operating systems. Once you add more memory that this (unless you need it for a particular application) your system wont really get any "faster".

OS Memory Sweet Spots:

• Windows XP - 4GB
• Windows Vistsa x86 - 4GB (The OS actually doesn't support any more memory)
• Windows Vista x64 - 8GB
• Windows 7 x64 - 8GB

Answer 2

The correct answer is (almost) always Widening the bottleneck.

If your computer is going slow because it's paging all the time, then you need more RAM and a faster CPU won't do you much good.

If your computer stutters over a game that's CPU-bound (Source engine games, for instance, are notorious for eating CPU) then a new graphics card is just going to sit idle.

The much more important question in my mind is How the hell do I tell what's slowing me down?

Answer 3

Solid State Drive - SSD's access much faster than a standard Hard Drive since they are chip based, instead of having a spinning disk inside. At the time of this posting they are still pretty expensive, but will definitely make your system boot up faster and will allow your computer to bring up your programs faster when you run them.

Answer 4

Faster or Multi-Core CPU / Processor - Upgrading to a faster CPU / Processor can help increase the performance of you computer, but you'll need to give it a decent upgrade. For example: You may never notice a difference upgrading from a 2.4Ghz CPU to a 2.6Ghz CPU. However, you will probably notice the difference between a 2.4Ghz and a 3.6Ghz CPU. Also, if you currently have a Single-Core CPU and you upgrade to a Dual-Core with a similar or higher operating frequency (Ghz) you will probably notice a difference in performance.

The performance increase is also relative to the amount of your CPU that you utilize at any given time. If your CPU utilization is at about 75% or higher alot of time you will benefit the most from a CPU upgrade. However, if your CPU is normally at about 50% or lower utilization, then you probably do not need a CPU upgrade since you wont notice much difference.

Answer 5

Upgrade to at least 2GB RAM then, if the HDD is relatively old - get a new one. Disk I/O is the main bottleneck after RAM, IMHO

Answer 6

ProcessExplorer, FileMon and the other (IMHO) great tools from sysinternals can help diagnose where the botleneck lies. Just keep an eye on strained processor, very frequent access to the page file, etc.

Answer 7

Windows Vista and Windows 7 provide a brilliant rating system. The system gets an overall performance rating, and the rating is divided into components that are also rated.

This may tell you that RAM or your graphics card is the biggest bottleneck in your system, and you can upgrade the weakest component to get the performance boost you're looking for.

One caveat:
Take into consideration if the bottleneck is related to what you want. The rating may indicate that your graphics card is the bottleneck. However, if you want more performance for, say, an intensive database application calculation, or massive Internet traffic, then 3-D graphics won't help at all.