17
votes
How can I evaluate processor performance when comparing processors?
There are more parameters when comparing and choosing CPUs.
Also lets not forget that performance depends on what we do.
Lets bring list of parameters which can affect performance (sorted by ...
- 381
13
votes
Aside from aesthetics, is there a benefit to PC water cooling?
From Wikipedia:
The advantages of using water cooling over air cooling include water's higher specific heat capacity, density, and thermal conductivity. This allows water to transmit heat over ...
- 2,924
11
votes
How can I evaluate processor performance when comparing processors?
The most obvious way is just to simply benchmark the two against each other. If you have a machine with each processor installed, or one machine with the ability to change the processor, then you can ...
- 2,291
11
votes
What should I look for besides pixel density/count when choosing a smartphone with a good camera?
General guidance for buying cameras alone can be applied here. There are several important aspects:
Pixels
This is the resolution that the image sensor is capable of capturing. The greater the number,...
- 2,291
8
votes
Aside from aesthetics, is there a benefit to PC water cooling?
Water-cooling is better than traditional fan-cooling.
Using it is reasonable if you have hardware that gets hot very often and reaches its temperature limits; and you can't cool it down in traditional ...
- 381
7
votes
Aside from aesthetics, is there a benefit to PC water cooling?
I'm going to divide water cooling into two categories: Closed loop and Open loop. Now we can compare Tower (air), CLC, Open loop and exotic (LN2 or similar) cooling methods.
Big air coolers are ...
- 1,782
6
votes
Accepted
250 GB SSD for programming cheaper than ~£100?
I've got the 256gb variant of the Samsung 850 Pro and running a few tests would be quite enlightening. Improving compile time may also depend on processor so... it depends on your options. Likewise ...
- 3,731
5
votes
Accepted
What should I look for besides pixel density/count when choosing a smartphone with a good camera?
The general list of features you should consider has been pretty well covered by others, I will tackle this from a slightly different angle:
Just how important is the camera to you?
Is it more or ...
- 1,374
5
votes
Will switching to SSD improve my write performance?
It depends mainly on the type of NAND the SSD uses, and also somewhat on the controller.
Higher quality SLC NAND stores one bit per cell. This make the cells much faster and longer lived, whereas MLC ...
- 1,782
4
votes
Accepted
Upgrade HDD to SSD for Dell Inspiron 5558
Please note, this is answer is for the Dell Inspiron 15-5558, which hopefully is the same as the OP has.
Is my laptop compatible to upgrade to SSD ?
Yes, as you can see in the following picture, ...
- 1,418
4
votes
Accepted
Laptop for coding
Since, you're starting out with coding I wouldn't expect you to be using heavy Integrated Developer Environments, like Visual Studio + Resharper which can weigh heavily on the performance of your cpu ...
- 1,142
3
votes
Tablet vs Laptop
This is a rather vague question, but I will do my best to answer it. A budget of $5000 will bring you a long way. My recommendation is a Microsoft Surface Book. Without knowing what the "same ...
- 1,751
3
votes
How does the performance of current i7 CPU's compare to i7 920?
Are there any benchmark tests which compare older i7's to current i7's?
Cinebench (benchmarks) (6700k performs 72% better)
3DMark (benchmarks) (comparison1) (6700k performs 33% better)
Passmark (...
- 1,751
3
votes
Accepted
Dual boot system--Better to have 1x 2TB with separate partitions or 2x 1TB SSD?
With SSDs, assuming all else is equal - same speed, size etc, then there is no speed advantage in having two separate drives.
Instead you have an element of redundancy. If one fails, you still have ...
- 391
3
votes
Accepted
Is it worth getting a 144hz monitor when FPS games go only 80fps?
Well, it definitely won't increase your FPS :)
Seriously, for gaming performance it technically doesn't matter. The only difference is the amount of frames that are shown by the monitor, not the ...
- 2,345
2
votes
How can I evaluate processor performance when comparing processors?
The other answers are technically correct, but are IMHO unlikely to help. The benchmark you care the most about is your real-life usage of the processor.
Watch yourself using the processor and watch ...
- 333
2
votes
250 GB SSD for programming cheaper than ~£100?
SDDs are quite conspicuous when it comes to quality and performance. Capacity, read/write times are made very clear so you can buy what you need. Any further optimisation will come down to your OS, ...
- 121
2
votes
Will switching to SSD improve my write performance?
The answer is simple: yes, switching from HDDs to SSDs is a huge improvement but that depends on the write and read speed of the SSDs themselves.
Personally I gave up a 1TB HDD for a 240GBs SSD and ...
- 418
2
votes
Accepted
Which configuration do I choose for my laptop?
I would suggest the Acer.
Reasons.
It has an SSD which improves boot times.
It comes stock with 16GB of RAM, which is the most you should realistically need for gaming.
Also, some applications, ...
- 408
2
votes
Accepted
Is single thread performance of a CPU more important than overall performance for daily use (watching movie, browsing, etc)?
I can answer your question. In terms of CPU utilization, there are three kinds of programs the average computer user will encounter:
Programs that don't use very much CPU at all (most programs)
...
- 2,330
2
votes
Accepted
Tablet vs Laptop
Nowadays, many tablets have the same, or more, performance than laptops.The Microsoft Surface Pro 4 is a very good option for portability and performance. It has a beautiful screen, a powerful ...
- 1,697
2
votes
Accepted
1066MHz vs. 1333MHz memory speed: how much will it impact a POV-Ray workload?
A general rule of thumb is that a 100% increase in memory speed corresponds to a 5% increase in overall performance. This is because memory access is slow relative to the CPU, so CPUs and programs ...
- 2,887
2
votes
Upgrade for LGA775
I recommend getting a secondhand Core 2 Quad Q9650 or Core 2 Quad X9650 (for your purposes, they're all the same CPU, just with different branding). This will give you almost double the single-...
- 2,887
2
votes
Processor type for web development (webpack dev server, jest tests, node, docker building) - High clock speed vs multiple cores?
On a laptop, I would recommend an i7 8th gen for your use case. These CPUs are 4 cores for the U (low power), and 6 cores for the H (high performance) series. They have decent single thread ...
- 1,697
2
votes
Accepted
Will a non-ECC memory work with motherboard and CPU that supports ECC?
Yes, it does work together.
Yes, this motherboard will run both ECC and non ECC ram (always in non ECC mode though) according to AnandTech.
Will the opposite case work?
Depends. ECC unbuffered ...
- 376
2
votes
Accepted
Screen change made half of my hardware obsolete: what to upgrade first?
could my the graphic card (NVIDIA GTX 570) be the limiting factor in the refresh rate?
It is absolutely this.
The GTX 570 is too old to have a DisplayPort that can handle 3840x2160 at 60hz.
Update ...
- 1,238
2
votes
Are recent AMD CPUs or Intels with efficiency cores better for a MSVC (C++) focused developer PC setup (are those E-Cores any good?)
Are there any performance comparisons available? Are there recommendations?
We can estimate the performance based on the numbers from timed compilation benchmarks on openbenchmarking.org.
CPUs may be ...
- 121
2
votes
Accepted
Why are ethernet connections disappearing from new laptops?
Probably fake answer that laptop manufacturers are gonna give you: yes, we need to make laptops thinner and ethernet ports are too big.
Probably real answer: Cost saving. Good network controllers can ...
- 2,345
1
vote
Upgrade for LGA775
You could upgrade to a quad core processor and 4GB of RAM if you intend to keep the motherboard. CPUs codenamed Yorkfield were the latest you could get for the 775 platform (they are about USD 40 on ...
- 648
1
vote
Which configuration do I choose for my laptop?
Both the machines are upgradable to the same extent.
SSD can be added.
More RAM can be added.
Now, Acer comes with the higher specs in ram and SSD. Which extremely reflects your performance.
Now ...
- 149
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