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Pushing PC Performance

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PCQ Bureau
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There are four components that affect a PC’s

performance that you can change: RAM, hard disk, display card, and

processor. Changing any of these can alter the performance of your

machine, and each change comes at a different price. Some of the changes

may come at a prohibitively high cost and may not give you a significant

improvement in performance. Some changes, on the other hand, can bring

substantial improvements at a very low cost. And if you are not careful

enough, you may even end up paying more for less performance increase.

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In these pages we will guide you through

the changes that you can make to get the best performance, in the

different brands we have tested. Based on the results, we have also drawn

up some important guidelines for you while purchasing any PC, not just the

brands tested here.

Is

32 MB RAM enough?

You will not be able to squeeze every ounce of performance from

your machine if you stick to 32 MB RAM. Gone are the days when

your machine seemed quick with

32

MB RAM. With better processors and heavier apps today, you need 64

MB.

We received some PCs with 32 MB RAM. When we upgraded them to

64 MB, there was a significant boost in performance. And the cost

of additional 32 MB RAM is only around Rs 2,700.

Increasing RAM to 128 MB did not give any improvement in

performance for normal business apps.

Business Winstone results for RAM tests

Note: Higher value is better.

Bottom line: You need 64 MB RAM. 32 MB doesn’t give full

performance. 128 MB doesn’t add to performance.

Performance improvement

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For each machine tested, we

identified the slowest part. Here we recommend what changes can be made to

that part to get a performance boost, how much is the performance boost,

and how much does it cost.

For each PC, we located the bottlenecks by

analyzing the scores they got in the component-level benchmark, WinBench.

After identifying the slower components, we replaced them with faster

ones. As stated earlier, we looked at the processor, hard disk, RAM, and

video card only. We didn’t consider the impact of a change of the

motherboard, as that’s something very difficult to accomplish when

buying a branded machine.



Win NT or 95?

Most PCs ship with Win 95 or 98. But it is Win

NT that gives you better performance. The improvement can be as

high as 31 percent.

Win NT also has a higher degree of CPU

utilization than Win 9x. The percentage of CPU utilization more

than doubled in some cases, as compared to Win 95. The overall

performance improvement is worth the change.

Business Winstone results for performance test

Note: Higher value is better.

Bottom line: Win NT gives better

performance with business apps than Win 9x.
 
Which

hard disk?

The latest technology in IDE hard drives is the UltraATA/66

interface. This allows burst transfer rates of up to 66 MB/sec

compared to 33 MB/sec of the earlier UltraATA/33 interface. We

recommend that you buy a hard disk with this interface. Also,

ensure that your PC’s BIOS supports UltraATA/66. In our tests,

the 10 GB Western Digital Caviar 310000 (UltraATA/66) gave the

best transfer rates among all hard drives used in the competing

models.

And of course, a faster rpm drive also gives better

performance. Most hard drives today are 5,400 rpm.

 
AcerPower

4100 PIII 500 MHz

Bottleneck

:

4.3 GB Seagate hard disk



Replacement: 10 GB Western
Digital Caviar 310000



Performance boost: 6%


Difference in cost: Rs 5,100

When we replaced the hard disk of the AcerPower, its
performance almost matched the top performer’s, the Compaq

Deskpro EP. And you don’t have to pay as much as the Deskpro to

have it. Not only that, you also get 6 GB additional hard disk

space, which makes it a good bargain.
 
Cerebra

Pentium II 350 MHz

For the Cerebra, we were able to identify two bottlenecks: the

CPU and the display card.

Bottleneck 1

:

Pentium II 350 MHz processor



Replacement:

Pentium II 400 MHz



Performance

boost:

6.5%



Difference

in cost:

Rs 700

Thus, by paying just Rs 700 more, you get a significant

performance boost.

Bottleneck 2

:

Intel i740 display card with 8 MB VRAM



Replacement:

Matrox MGA G200A with 8 MB VRAM



Boost in

performance:

1.6%



Difference

in cost:

Rs 3,600

A very high price to pay for negligible performance boost. Not

recommended for regular office work. But if you are an avid gamer,

well, wouldn’t you want to squeeze out the last ounce of gaming

performance!
 

Compaq

Deskpro EP P III 500 MHz

We tried to boost the Deskpro’s performance by trying out

various components. However, we could not achieve any significant

change. One such test included increasing the RAM to 128 MB. The

results of this too matched those for 64 MB. A faster processor

would probably make a difference…

In short, we loved the machine and, but for the steep price,

would have bought a few ourselves. Incidentally, when we first got

the machine, we were given a price of Rs 130,000. Subsequently,

Compaq gave us a price of just above Rs 100,000. Guess we should

wait for some more time!
 
HP

Brio BAx PII 400 MHz

Bottleneck

:

Pentium II 400 MHz processor



Replacement:

Pentium III 500 MHz



Boost in

performance:

12%



Difference

in cost:

Rs 17,500

This is a very significant improvement indeed. However, the

price involved is too high. Current market dynamics dictate that

it may not be exactly the wisest decision to go in for the latest

processor always. Processor prices drop every quarter. So we

suggest that you wait for the price of the PIII to drop…

The BAx uses a Seagate hard disk that seems to be a special OEM

model for HP.

We replaced it with a Western Digital Caviar 310000. However,

there was no visible difference in performance.
 
VAT

2000 Celeron 366 MHz

The VAT also gives two avenues for improvement: the RAM and the

hard disk

Bottleneck 1

:

32 MB RAM



Replacement:

64 MB



Performance

boost:

10%



Difference

in cost:

Rs 2,700

By now we have said enough about the need to have 64 MB RAM–a

ten percent improvement in performance for just Rs 2,700!

Bottleneck 2

:

4.3 GB Seagate Medalist 4310 hard disk



Replacement:

10 GB Western

Digital 310000



Performance

boost:

7.8%



Difference

in cost:

Rs 5,100

The cost is worth the performance boost. And you get an

additional 6 GB of hard disk real estate in the bargain.
 

Vintron

Elixir 3000 PIII 450

One area of performance improvement would be the CPU. But as

seen with other similar models, the costs are prohibitive at this

point. However, we noticed that with this model, the CPU

utilization for disk I/O was very high, compared to the others.
 
Wipro

Super Genius 9000 PIII 450 MHz

The Genius 9000 performed almost as well as the Compaq EP. So

we were not very hopeful of significant improvements. However, we

identified two possible changes: the hard disk and the video card.

Bottleneck 1

:

Pentium III 450 MHz processor



Replacement:

Pentium III 500 MHz



Performance

boost:

4%



Difference

in cost:

Rs 12,500

The 450 MHz processor, which is just a step behind 500 MHz, was

not too far behind in performance. An extra Rs 12,500 for a four

percent improvement is not advisable. Perhaps, Wipro has chosen

wisely to be a step behind Intel, and reap the price benefit.

Bottleneck 2

:

Cirrus Logic 5465 display card with 4 MB VRAM



Replacement:

Matrox MGA

G200A with 8 MB VRAM



Performance

Boost:

1.3%



Difference

in cost:

Rs 4,700

Unless you plan to purchase a machine for graphics work, a

high-end graphics card is not worth putting money into.
 
Zenith

PC PIII 450 MHz

The Zenith presented us with two potential areas for

improvement: the RAM and the processor.

Bottleneck 1

:

32 MB RAM



Replacement:

64 MB



Performance

boost: 15%



Difference

in cost:

Rs 2,700

This was the most significant improvement we could obtain in a

machine with a single replacement. And Rs 2,700 is a small price

to pay for this huge performance difference. With today’s memory

greedy apps, 32 MB is just not sufficient. 64 MB is definitely a

must.







Bottleneck 2:

Pentium III 450 MHz processor



Replacement:

Pentium III 500 MHz



Performance

boost:

4.8%



Difference

in cost:

Rs 12,500

This is similar to that obtained in the Wipro PC. It’s not

recommended that you go for this change now, at this price.
 
Did

you know...
  • That the latest processor is also the most expensive one?

    And it may not give you significant performance improvements

    over its predecessor (with 50 MHz less clock speed), for

    normal productivity apps. So go for the older one. For

    example, if PIII 500 is the latest, the PIII 450 offers you

    much better price-performance.
  • That Windows NT gives you much better performance than Windows

    95, even for common business applications?
  • That 64 MB RAM is best for today’s needs? Don’t go for

    anything more or anything less.
  • That you don’t need a high-end display card for running

    common business apps? A high-end card is very expensive unless

    you want to use it for high-end graphics apps. Again, at the

    higher end, gaming cards are different from the application

    cards.
  • For regular office use, a Celeron gives you the best

    price-performance ratio, while for high-end graphics work like

    CAD, a Pentium II/III is a good buy?
  • That the UltraATA/66 hard disks offer a significant

    performance boost over the older UltraATA/33 ones? But your BIOS

    should have support for UltraATA/66.
  • That this type of story has never been attempted before,

    anywhere?

    		•
     
    Market

    prices

    Hard disks



    disks Rs
    Seagate Medalist 4310 4,900
    Seagate Medalist 8455 7,500
    Western Digital Caviar 310000 10,000
    Display

    cards
    Intel i740 Power 3D AGP (8 MB

    VRAM     		2,400
    Matrox MGA G200A AGP (8 MB

    VRAM)     		6,000
    SiS 6326 AGP (4 MB VRAM) 1,300
    Cirrus Logic GD5465 AGP (4 MB

    VRAM)     		1,300
    Processors
    Intel Pentium II 350 MHz 9,800
    Intel Pentium II 400 MHz 10,500
    Intel Pentium III 450 MHz 15,500
    Intel Pentium III 500 MHz 28,000
    Intel Celeron 366 MHz (Socket

    370)     		4,000
    RAM
    32 MB 100 MHz SDRAM 2,700
    64 MB 100 MHz SDRAM 4,500
    128 MB 100 MHz SDRAM 10,500
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    The prices for the components used in the analysis have been

    provided by:

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    Classic Network and Computers O-41 West Patel Nagar,

    New Delhi 110008. Tel: 11- 574760

    Fortune Marketing 500 204 Eros Appartments, 56 Nehru Place,

    New Delhi 110019.



    Tel: 11-6427627, 6472492

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