Hardware performance

What are the roles of each individual hardwares that increase the overall performance of a system?

Newer games, operating system and applications are requiring more and more power from the system faster processor and more memory. Why is nowadays applications(games, os) need a better hardware setup to run on? Is it the games/application/os are more sophisticated and complex therefore more complex instructions are programme into the applications, therefore only a faster CPU would be able to run/launch the programs at ease?

Can someone explain to me the roles of L1, L2 cache, frontside bus and clock speed in improving the performance.

Basic requirement of the software also request for a better ram. Here's a question came to mnid that SD, DDR, RD ram and the cas-latency increase the performance. Why do most people suggest that video editing usage system should be well equipped with a 1GIG ram ?
And why it is you have a big amount of ram in your system, disable of virtual ram is alright?

Buying tips for getting a hard disk most people would say get a bigger disk cache ones and bigger RPM ones they would give you a better performance in read/write/access of your data.

What's the tips to get a graphics card? get a faster mem/clock speed ones?

Can anyone explain to me that when a application like MS Office launch by the user, how would each individual hardware like cpu,ram,hdd responds to the launching of the program?

For gamers why a good gfx card is needed? It is because of the intensive graphics rendering of the games? i.e a 4x/8x difference?

How would you go along choosing your components like cpu,ram,hdd .. etc.

hardware newbie here please pardon me... :p

I feell like I'm writing a school paper. lol


CPU: The faster the CPU operates, the faster it can execute instructions that are given to it.This is one of the major things that deteremines a PC's speed. When you see L1 cache, and L2 cache this refers to the amount of instructions that the CPU can store on itself before it has to access the data from the RAM. This also plays a important role as to how fast the PC wil operate. A lot of Servers have a large amount of this type of memory.

FSB: or Front Side Bus: This deteremines how fast information can be sent across the board. The lower the FSB i.e. 333mhz will seem a bit slower on certain applications when compared to a 533mhz or a 800mhz.

Hard Drive: The Faster the RPM, the quicker it can access data, Therefore lowering thee seek time. The higher the RPM the faster. Also when you see ATA 100 or ultra DMA 100 etc that talks about how fast can the HD transfer information over the IDE channels. ATA 100= 100 MB a sec. If you look into SCSI drives, and the New SATA drives, they will spin anywere from 10,000 rpms to 15,000 I believe.

Ram: Ram is an essential component of a PC. This allows the computer to store data about programs it is currenty running. However, RAM has to be continually refreshed with a electric charge, therefore if you loose power, you loose what was stored there. This is why we save things. lol The more RAM you have the better. If you run out of ram Windows will create a virtual space on the Hard Drive called Swap Space. When you don't have any more ram available, Windows will store it on the Hard drive, but this will slow up the computer.

Video Card: When your picking a video card ask your self what your going to do with it? Game? Office applications? Graphic Design? For Gaming, I usually go with either the Nvidia Geforce 4 or FX line of Video Cards, or the ATI Radeon Line. For Office work then just something like a Nvidia mx 220 would do. If your a graphic design person, then you might want to look at Quadro line of professional Cards. Basically, A video card is tested to see how much memory it has, how fast it can transfer it, the CPU clock speed on the Video Card, its fill rates, and number of textures per pixel. Basically, the higher the number the better the Card.

CD-ROM/RW: Well theres not really much to say about this excep that the higher the number the faster it will read/write.

When you launch a program such as Microsoft Office, what happens is the Operatings System sends an instruction to the CPU, The CPU operates the Instruction, then the Hard Drive searches for the file that it needs to open up. When it finds the File and executes it, it is loaded into RAM. and stays there till you close it.

One Reason the computer must be faster to run more games is bcause of the changing technology. With all the new graphic programs out that can create these life like images, it requires lots more computing power to be able to draw these images. Also, people want realism in games, so the software developers do their best to give it to them. lol

When I buy a Hard drive, I look at the RPM speed/ the seek time, and the buffer. The faster and larger that the buffer and RPM is the better. The lower the seek time the better.

When I choose components for PC, i think about what I need this PC for. If its a gaming PC I'll stay with high end components. If its just a office machine, then I'll skimp on stuff like Video Card, Sound Card, Hard Drive, and maybe get a bit of a slower CPU.

When you have a video editing PC, and use programs such as Photoshop, Image Ready, Premiere, Bryce etc these programs use a fairly decent amount of memory. IF your running all these programs with only 128 or 256MB of Ram then they are gonna load slower, and take longer to apply effects. The more ram you have the quicker they can operate.

And Like I said earlier about swap space. Swap space slows your computer down a bit when the OS has to use it. Therefore if you have a lot of ram then Windows will almost never have to use swap space. But I would keep it there just in case.

I hope I answered all your questions if you have any others let me know.

Thanks for all the information provided :D

lol

No problem

If you need anything else answered, I'm just a mouse click away :)