A question for all the geeks out there:)

kronoSX

kronoSX

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We having this discussion at work about what makes a pc faster.
Now mostly we are arguing about the cpu and the ram.
what do you think the answer would be.I said that the brain of the pc is the cpu and this is what makes the pc faster...correct i am(little yoda there).:D
 
dablakmark8 said:
We having this discussion at work about what makes a pc faster.
Now mostly we are arguing about the cpu and the ram.
what do you think the answer would be.I said that the brain of the pc is the cpu and this is what makes the pc faster...correct i am(little yoda there).:D
Click to expand...

/me goes to find a geek to answer your question! :p



Seriously though, and to be obscenely technical, it would be a combination of CPU / RAM / Graphics / HDD speed. All those factors would influence speed, and any one of them could hinder it.
 
You can have the same CPU and different Mobo, Ram combos and one will be able to outperform the other CPU setup.
 
Maybe so, but the CPU makes the most performance difference in any setup ;)
 
Its definately a combination of CPU, RAM and Mobo, maybe graphics card. Some reckon your pc is only as "fast" as the slowest component, eg If you have a kick ass CPU but crap ram, the speed of the ram is gonna bring down the overall performance of your pc.
 
Some thoughts.

In general he who has the fastest bus has the fastest pc.

In the good old days when programs actualy ran in the memory available on the machine upgrading cpu increase number of clock cycles hence increased performance whereas increasing memory only increased space.

These days with effectively unlimited memory albeit most of it sitting in some form of swap file increasing ram will have a perceived increase in response simply because more of the actual program will reside in memory. If you have a small program that does not use the swap file no perceived increase if you increase ram.

If you get a new HDD with increased cache and throughput you should see an increase in "performance".

To really put it all in a mix. If you have really fast ram but a slower cpu speed will obviously be slow but ALSO if you have faster cpu than your ram can handle, the impact could be equally disasterous.

So the fastest pc is the one with the widest bus and a cpu that reads and writes to memory at the optimum speed so no wasted cycles on either memory or cpu or gpu. And HDD to match that performance.

In theory anyway.
 
Yes, the CPU and RAM speed is paramount, but hard drive data transfer speed can cap all that especially wrt the feel and speed of boot and large data files that need to be loaded.

I would say the following should all dance together well:
1. CPU
2. RAM
3. MOTHERBOARD
4. HARD DRIVE
5. GPU

That looks like an entire PC, but a slow hard drive can mess up a well tuned machine... Most people I know have pretty good equipment but cut back on a good hard drive and lose out a lot.
 
It also depends on what aspect of the speed of the computer you are talking about. Because different functions of a computer uses different components to greater or lesser degree.
 
This is starting to remind me of a story about which part of the body is the most important ... in the end each little part is.
 
The general feeling in this thread seems to be that everything needs to work together, and I tend to agree. Different components will offer different aspects of the "speed" you talk about. So because "faster" is a very vague term, the answer is vague too. If you could be more specific (more responsive, better for graphics, better for multi-tasking, etc), then the answer could be more specific.

One more 2c, though:
While going about daily office tasks, even on the most entry-level PCs, I notice that CPU usage remains pretty low. This tells me that most office tasks these days (and I'm generalising here) aren't incredibly CPU intensive, and so for office-work (which often entails a lot of multi-tasking and keeping large files open with large software suites), I'd have to go with RAM and Hard Drive speed as being important.
 
This tells me that most office tasks these days (and I'm generalising here) aren't incredibly CPU intensive, and so for office-work (which often entails a lot of multi-tasking and keeping large files open with large software suites), I'd have to go with RAM and Hard Drive speed as being important.
Click to expand...

you are correct.

It depends on the application.

I had a PC that rocked at everything, it was fast at office tasks and doing stuff like programming, but it was a piece of crap when running even a bottom-of-the-barrel game.

Speed is a relative term, depends on the application of the PC
 
cpu ram and hdd

mobo a little but wont effect your pc performance to much

i mean a 500 buck mobo will run windows just as well as a 5k mobo
 
"faster" depends on what you do. If it's Photoshop, yeah, CPU and RAM. If it's MS Office, I can give you a P-III and you wouldn't know it.
 
SO all components need to work in harmony to make a pc fast....After reading all the replys i am a bit confused.THe cpu is the most important part of a pc,without it the pc is like dead.So it stands to reason that a what makes a pc is the cpu hence the speed to.Without that speed you will not have a fast pc..:D
 
dablakmark8 said:
SO all components need to work in harmony to make a pc fast....After reading all the replys i am a bit confused.THe cpu is the most important part of a pc,without it the pc is like dead.So it stands to reason that a what makes a pc is the cpu hence the speed to.Without that speed you will not have a fast pc..:D
Click to expand...

yeah, since the CPU dictates the architecture type anyway.
 
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