Whatever you use your PC for, from playing mini roulette to browsing for the latest bargains, there will always come the point when it behaves unexpectedly. When it’s slow, often people feel powerless to do anything about it. Most of this stems from ignorance about the workings of their PC. This article will help you understand computer speed and what affects it. After reading this article, you’ll know what to look for when you want to increase computer speed and have a machine that runs as smoothly as possible.
NUMBER OF CORES (PROCESSORS)
The CPU is where you’ll find the processing units, each one known as a core. Every core will contain a control unit, ALU, and registers. Usually, a PC will have either two or four cores, and the more you have, the more programs you can run at the same time.
However, if you think that you can double your computer speed by doubling the number of cores, then think again! As they have to communicate with each other, this takes some of the speed away, but in general, increasing the number of cores is a great idea and will boost performance.
MULTIPLE APPLICATIONS AFFECTING COMPUTER SPEED
Any kind of computer speed test will indicate a decrease in performance with an increase in the number of tasks running. Multitasking slows down your PC because applications have less memory to themselves. The more apps running at the same time, the slower your PC will be. It’s something to keep in mind when optimizing performance on your machine.
GRAPHICS CARD TYPE
When it comes to visuals, the user interface, pictures, videos, and more, a powerful graphics card is imperative to good performance. If you are using your PC to process a lot of graphics, you may want to know how to speed up computer performance by optimizing your graphics card in the BIOS, or you could purchase a more up-to-date one and swap the old one out. Graphics cards can be used to perform nonvisual computations, too, so don’t forget that they are important for general performance.
DATA BUS WIDTH
Between the processor and main memory, you have a series of connectors or wires known as the data bus. This is what helps transport data between these two components. When you increase your bus from 32 to 64 bit, you will be able to transfer at least twice as much at any given time. If you want to improve performance, think about increasing the size of your data bus.
MEMORY CACHE
Computers often reuse actions, so in light of this, the cache is a type of memory that holds temporary instructions so that they needn’t be computed unnecessarily. The CPU automatically makes checks in the cache for any instructions before requesting data from the RAM. By doing this, performance is increased because it saves using data unnecessarily. These transfers take a lot less time than a transfer to and from the RAM. The larger the cache, the more data can be stored close to the CPU.
CLOCK SPEED
The clock rate, or clock speed, shows how fast the central processing unit can run. You will find this measured in gigahertz or megahertz, depending on the computer you have. The measurement is an indication of how many instruction cycles the CPU deals with every second. As an example, a 2 GHz CPU can perform 2 billion calculations every second. The larger this number is, the faster the CPU is, and the more heat is produced.
Maximum clock settings are hardcoded by default in PCs. However, you can tweak these by manipulating the computer’s BIOS. If you manipulate to increase your clock speed faster than what is advertised, this is known as overclocking. We would not recommend doing this because there are genuine limits to how fast your CPU can run. There is no guarantee that its circuitry will be able to meet the demands of overclocked speeds. If the speed is too fast, you run the risk of not completing a computation before the next one is carried out. Data can therefore become corrupted if the CPU is not able to keep up with the pace of its clock, and damage can come from overheating the machine.
MALWARE
One of the best ways to speed up computer performance is actually to eliminate malware. Malware, spyware, and viruses can monitor your activity, take control of your computer, and create all sorts of complications that reduce performance.
Anything unwanted and malicious is going to seriously affect performance, so make sure that you invest in a good antivirus to prevent such attacks on your computer. It will seriously help in the long run, and make sure that you scan your computer at least once every week to keep your antivirus updated and remove any unwanted junk from affecting the performance of your computer.
DEFRAGMENTING
Sometimes memory isn’t stored efficiently. When you run a defragmenter, fragmented data is rearranged so that your drives and disks can work more productively. With more space on them, this will also improve performance. Most defragmenters run on a schedule, so if you haven’t configured defragmentation to run regularly on your computer, then do so today.
CONCLUSION
Now that you’re knowledgeable about what goes on inside your PC, you’ll be able to significantly speed up computer performance. If you don’t have one yet, think about the factors that we’ve mentioned and apply them to your purchasing decisions. Depending on what you use your computer for, different factors are going to influence performance.
