2
GHz system??”and the company that just sold you that 2.8 Ghz PC wouldn??™t
have it any other way. Sure, that new system you??™re drooling over does seem
a whole lot faster than your one-year-old machine when you play with it in
the gizmo store, but how much is due merely to the processor??™s clock speed,
and how much is determined by other factors?
Naturally, the increased processor speed is an obvious benefit in some specific
circumstances, such as when you??™re applying lens corrections to a few
hundred digital photos, creating a PDF from a 200-page document, or playing
a particularly processor-intensive game. But in most cases, a faster processor
alone won??™t get you your email any faster, load a web site any sooner, or get
your book to the publisher when it??™s actually due.
If you think about it, your qualitative assessment of your PC??™s speed is based
on its ability to respond immediately to mouse clicks and keystrokes, start
applications quickly, open menus and dialog boxes without a delay, start up
and shut down Windows quickly, and display graphics and animations
smoothly. For the most part, all of these things depend on the amount of system
memory (RAM) your PC has, the speed of your hard drive, and the prowess
of your video card as much as??”if not more than??”the speed of your
CPU.
Probably the biggest drag on an older PC??™s performance, and the main reason
it may seem so much slower than a new system??”not to mention slower than
it might??™ve been only last year??”is the glut of applications and drivers that
have been installed.
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