Unless your computer's specs are really poor the biggest performance killer is the hard drive. Installing a newer, or high performance hard drive gives the biggest gain. The stupid part is almost no computer manufacturer even gives the specs for the hard drive, other than the size. Size isn't everything! :D
For instance comparing these: - WD Caviar 160 GB SATA 7200 RPM 8.9 ms 8 MB Cache Hard Drive - WD Raptor 73.4 GB SATA 100000 RPM 4.5 ms 8 MB Cache NCQ Hard Drive You'll see there's more than just Gigabytes here. First I've listed, the manufacturer and model, next size, then bus type/connection, then spindle speed, then average latency, then on-board cache memory size, and then finally extra features. The three important advantages the Raptor has over the Caviar is the spindle speed, average latency, and finally NCQ. Broken down... Spindle speed: the Raptor can perform Input/Output on the disk inside 40% faster than the Caviar because the disk is spinning faster over the heads. This is like speeding up a record on a record player. Average Latency: 8.9 ms versus 4.5 ms means the Raptor can complete a read or write request about 98% faster than the Caviar on average. This literally means the heads inside can move faster over the surface of the disk. (Although the treu average is an aggregate of spindle speed and head speed) NCQ stands for Native Command Queueing. When I/O is happening on the hard drive, NCQ allows the drive to re-order the requests into a more optimal pattern. The drive can determine what's the best route to the locations requested inside the drive and re-order it on the fly. This can improve performance by up to 40%. The Raptor has an average performance edge of somewhere from 25% to 55%, depending on how the hard drive is being accessed! And this performance can be almost directly be added to the total PC's performance. Even older systems can benefit from a newer, faster hard drive. I've seen a Pentium 100 with 16 MB of RAM and a new 40GB/7200RPM hard drive boot Windows 95 in *9* seconds! And that's with 16 MB of RAM! --- In [email protected], "petjdav" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > What determines the speed of a computer? > > I am considering replacing my present desktop computer with a laptop > and obviously I want the new computer to be at least as fast as the > old one. So what do I need to watch out for. > > Also how can I measure the actual speed of my computer? > > Best wishes, Peter. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Most low income households are not online. Help bridge the digital divide today! http://us.click.yahoo.com/cd_AJB/QnQLAA/TtwFAA/67folB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> If you have any questions or problems with any aspect of this site, please feel free to contact me directly [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please do not post personal issues directly to the group. To unsubscribe from this list, send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thank you for using A-1 Computer Tech Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/A-1-Computer_Tech/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
