PC specs & web surfing speed performance

Hi

how much does the actual specs of a PC affect the speed performance experienced when surfing the internet?
eg. bigger/quicker/more recent processor, bigger/quicker/more recent RAM, bigger/quicker/more recent hard drive etc.

Does the very latest PC, in comparison to a 5 year old PC, perform much quicker around the internet, even if they are experiencing the exact same download & upload speeds?

Cheers.

I just noticed that when i hit the view new posts button, T2W is using 100% of my dinosaur PCs CPU usage!
I suppose that answers my question!

My new PC comes tomorrow -
AMD athlon 64 5000 (2 times 2.6 ghz dual core)
250gb SATA 2 hard drive
256mb (onboards) graphics (g-force 7)
2048mb DDR2 PC800 RAM.

It has Windows XP pro installed on it. With these specs, will XP Pro enable me to get the best out ofthe new PC, or will XP Pro hold it back at all (being a faily old OS now)?

Cheers.

Im sure XP will do fine, if its just for browsing the net and trading. CPU and the amount+speed of the ram is the most important thing which in your new pc is pretty good so your good.

JTrader said:

Hi

how much does the actual specs of a PC affect the speed performance experienced when surfing the internet?

Click to expand...

It's worth trying Chrome rather than IE or Firefox as your browser. For reasons I am unqualified to explain, this seems to build pages faster and be more stable on my creaky old laptop.

Ben

Something else to bear in mind JT is that computers are machines - 5yrs of browsing, writing letters, excel etc are goint to wear out some of the components - I mean, if there has been a current passing through some of the elements on and off for 5 yrs, you would expect this to alter the resistive properties of the materials. Just like a car, after many years of use they can get knackared.

MrGecko said:

Something else to bear in mind JT is that computers are machines - 5yrs of browsing, writing letters, excel etc are goint to wear out some of the components - I mean, if there has been a current passing through some of the elements on and off for 5 yrs, you would expect this to alter the resistive properties of the materials. Just like a car, after many years of use they can get knackared.

Click to expand...

True. Its all physical matter at the end of the day.

More obvious perhaps is a mouse. Over a number of years a mouse scroll wheel will lose its sharpness due to use & the natural wear & tear of the cogs etc. Slowing down/delaying the scrolling process due to cog bluntness.
EG. My muse scroll wheel when i push it forwards or backwards, on the 1st click, it does nothing & the page doesn't move. Presumably due to wear....

JTrader said:

I just noticed that when i hit the view new posts button, T2W is using 100% of my dinosaur PCs CPU usage!
I suppose that answers my question!

My new PC comes tomorrow -
AMD athlon 64 5000 (2 times 2.6 ghz dual core)
250gb SATA 2 hard drive
256mb (onboards) graphics (g-force 7)
2048mb DDR2 PC800 RAM.

It has Windows XP pro installed on it. With these specs, will XP Pro enable me to get the best out ofthe new PC, or will XP Pro hold it back at all (being a faily old OS now)?

Cheers.

Click to expand...

The new PC is here, and its rapid
The old one was also using about 500mb ram to browse T2W. The new one is using around 204mb and when i hit view new posts, it is maxing at 22% CPU usage - so a big improvement - quicker as a result!

good stuff. Bought myself a new PC aswell last week. So fast! Had my other one for about 5 years and it was starting to make noises and really struggling.

You should have painted a couple of stripes down the side of your old PC.

How do i check the motherboard & graphics card RAM installed on my new PC. I just want to make sure its 256mb like its meant to be?

Wheres a website that scans and tells u your PC's specs. in minute detail?
Cheers.

JTrader said:

How do i check the motherboard & graphics card RAM installed on my new PC. I just want to make sure its 256mb like its meant to be?

Wheres a website that scans and tells u your PC's specs. in minute detail?
Cheers.

Click to expand...

This Belarc Advisor - Free Personal PC Audit will probably tell you more than you can stand!

Accessories > System Tools > System Information ..... Components > Display
should have info about graphics card RAM.

or right click desktop >> properties >> settings > advanced then maybe adapter tab or similar.

CPU-Z is good for processor/motherboard/memory detail

Type dxdiag into run also.

I heard for refresh rates opera is the fastest browser around. Chrome 2nd. Firefox 3rd. Depends what your using your browser for.

The good thing about my new pc is not that it loads XP or shuts down all that much quicker, but i can listen to music on youtube etc without it slowing my pc down.

RedGreenBen said:

It's worth trying Chrome rather than IE or Firefox as your browser. For reasons I am unqualified to explain, this seems to build pages faster and be more stable on my creaky old laptop.

Ben

Click to expand...

That may well be due to the multi process architecture. One things a lot of people don't understand is that currently, for the vast majority of stuff, dual processors do not help much. That will change soon though.

Personally getting me a blade to run my automatic trader (it's not really an automated system, so trader seems a better fit).

Love to all

Yeah, dual core = lots of smaller processes faster. (since each core is weaker than a single one anyways)

single core = amazing for single processes like games (but quadcore has now overtaken single for things like this).

I remember when the amd fx500 or something came out. I used to think that was amazing... Moore's Law I guess.

KillPhil08 said:

I remember when the amd fx500 or something came out. I used to think that was amazing... Moore's Law I guess.

Click to expand...

....... I remember my old 286 to where you could actually watch your charts being drawn while drinking your tea!

Does the very latest PC, in comparison to a 5 year old PC, perform much quicker around the internet, even if they are experiencing the exact same download & upload speeds?

Click to expand...

My computer i built back in 2002 when i was like 12 still serves me well today! Only thing i've added is an extra Hard Drive because i run my PC into the ground and used to end up re-installing my PC every Month! because of all the **** i used to download.

I had
AMD Athlon
120GB Hard drive
1 GiG Ram
ASUS Motherboard
NEON Lights!! Ha!

My computer about 7-8 years ago was of a high standard and i think its about an average spec to most PC's out now, and might even be slightly better (Not in comparison to you traders, just the general public). But compared to what i can build now if i had the money! its a pile of crap.

how much does the actual specs of a PC affect the speed performance experienced when surfing the internet?
eg. bigger/quicker/more recent processor, bigger/quicker/more recent RAM, bigger/quicker/more recent hard drive etc.

Click to expand...

The actual specs of the PC doesn't affect the speed performance of you surfing the internet, but it will affect you performance with the explorer software as if your CPU and RAM etc are ****e then its going to take forever to load up your explorer package before you even start surfing the internet, the PC i'm on now (not the one i mentioned above) isn't great at all, and its quite slow, so if the internet is the only application i have open then i'll be fine, but when i open other application such as MS Word, etc etc and keep switching between the windows thats when i start having problems :O

It's worth trying Chrome rather than IE or Firefox as your browser. For reasons I am unqualified to explain, this seems to build pages faster and be more stable on my creaky old laptop.

Click to expand...

If Chrome works better for your laptop then use it, in my opinion Firefox is the best out there. It very rarely crashes when my windows does, whereas IE is the first to crash when my XP does. I've only tried chrome once and i liked the feature of the most frequently visited websites, until IE raped it.

ecstasy said:

If Chrome works better for your laptop then use it, in my opinion Firefox is the best out there. It very rarely crashes when my windows does, whereas IE is the first to crash when my XP does. I've only tried chrome once and i liked the feature of the most frequently visited websites, until IE raped it.

Click to expand...

I saw an interesting graph (possibly unscientific - can't remeber if any data) on IG's website comparing browsers for use with their platform in terms of loading times etc. Internet Explorer was the slowest by a long chalk - Firefox / chrome etc all vastly better. Firefox is an excellent piece of kit - just go back to IE for a reminder why.