One of the best features of modern computers is their modularity. Desktop computers in particular make it relatively easy to replace any component with a better one.
However, a computer is a complex system, so how do you know which components need updating? What should you update on your PC?
The weakest link
The ideal computer is made up of a mixture of components that work well together. You don’t want a situation where one component is holding back the entire system because it can’t keep up.
This problem is the bane of prefab computers, especially budget models. System builders budget for major components such as CPU and save on other components to stay below target price.
The end result is a rather unbalanced car. On the other hand, your computer may have been fine when it was first built, but now one or more of the components cannot handle the new software.
We’ll take a look at each major component in turn to see if it needs an update or not. However, updates are not always the only option. Check out some of these RAM, GPU and CPU tuning utilities
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CPU
The central processing unit or central processing unit performs all of the general-purpose calculations of a computer. Everything that a computer does depends in one way or another on the processor. How do you know if your processor is low on power?
The most obvious way is to let the software you want to use be your guide. Applications and games usually come with the minimum and recommended processor specification. If your CPU drops below the minimum, that’s a pretty obvious sign that you need something new.
Regardless of your paper requirements, there are two things you’ll need to find out if your processor is in the way. The first is the CPU usage monitor and the second is just your eyes. We want to see how much of the CPU power is being used while you go about your business.
For desktop applications, you can simply use the built-in performance monitor in Windows Task Manager This will show you the percentage of your CPU power used. If you are playing on Windows, you can use the Windows Game Bar (by holding Win + G while playing) and pin the performance widget to the lower left corner of your screen so you can see what’s going on with your system while you play.
Here’s the trick: 100% CPU utilization while running doesn’t necessarily mean an upgrade. There are many tasks (like video conversion or rendering) that will always use 100% of the available CPU power. Whether you have the world’s fastest processor or the slowest. The only effect is that the task will take longer to complete on slower processors.
If this is exactly the job your CPU needs to do, then you will need to decide if the time it takes for your current hardware is acceptable or not. For professionals for whom time is money, cutting production times in half can be much more expensive than upgrading.
When poor CPU performance really takes its toll, it is when using the computer in real time. If your CPU is experiencing a high utilization rate when using applications, and the system responsiveness is slow, it might be a good idea to get a faster model.
Gamer CPU upgrades
For gamers, it’s a little more difficult. Desirable situation is to be “GPU limited”. That is, the maximum performance of your video games should be limited by your graphics chip, not your processor.
In the Windows Game Bar performance widget, you want to see 100% (or close to) GPU usage and less than 100% CPU usage. If the situation is reversed, you will experience stuttering and possibly unacceptable frame rates.
You can work around this in a number of ways without upgrading your hardware. Limiting the frame rate using GPU utility, in-game settings, or simply Vsync can slightly reduce the load on your processor and make the game smoother. You can also try increasing your gaming graphics settings to the point where the GPU becomes the limiting factor, giving the CPU time to rest.
RAM – RAM
RAM is fast storage space that your processor uses when working with data. Running applications reside in RAM while in use, which means you need enough memory to fit all the programs you want to run at the same time.
If you don’t have enough RAM to store running applications, this can seriously affect your computer’s performance. Because the computer is forced to keep the hard disk full by using a so called “paging file”. Since hard drives (and even solid state drives) are so much slower than RAM, you will really feel the impact on performance.
How do you know if you are experiencing this problem? Well, checking the amount of RAM in use doesn’t really help much. This is due to the fact that modern operating systems try to predict what you are going to do next and preload data into RAM in anticipation of this.
Instead, it’s better to check the actual RAM usage of running applications and see if it increases (or nearly as much) RAM as you have.
Updating is not an automatic solution. First, you may decide not to launch all of your applications at once. For example, if you are a gamer, you might want to try closing apps (like your browser) while playing, instead of letting it consume system resources in the background.
You may also be interested in learning about RAM speed. This is almost never a concern, and installing faster RAM alone rarely makes any practical sense. However, if you are replacing your current RAM with newer flash drives with higher capacities, you can also select modules at the speed your motherboard is designed to handle.
GPU
The GPU, or GPU, is a specialized chip that performs the duties of rendering graphics on your computer. It can be embedded in your processor case, soldered to the motherboard as a separate unit (as is usually the case with laptops), or exist on a separate expansion board. This is the norm for desktop computers.
While the GPU is designed to handle graphics rendering, it can also perform other more general purpose tasks. It is often used these days to quickly perform certain types of computation that processors cannot handle. Video editing programs, for example, often include the ability to render GPU-accelerated video.
When it comes to these versatile tasks, determining if a GPU is fast enough works the same way it does with a CPU. You need to decide if the time spent getting the job done is sufficient for your goals.
When it comes to real-time rendering applications like video games, we want to see a reasonably high frame rate at a given resolution and level of detail.
What’s a good frame rate? Well, that’s mostly personal preference. A common goal is stable 60 frames per second. Since most consumer displays refresh their image at 60Hz, any frames displayed above this number are lost.
That being said, there are now dedicated gaming monitors with a refresh rate of more than 100Hz, in which case you really benefit if you let your system produce more frames if possible. If you are a gamer, it is very important to buy a GPU that won’t be held back by your existing CPU. Check out our GPU bottleneck troubleshooting guide to learn more about this issue.
Hard Drives
Do you need to upgrade your computer’s hard drive? This is actually a rather difficult question. If you’re just running out of disk space that you have, it might be easier to delete some things. Remove programs you are not using.
Empty your trash and everything else from the list of ways to free up space. With cheap cloud storage these days, you can even move your data to the cloud using a service like DropBox. It is definitely much cheaper (and more reliable) than buying a new hard drive.
However, hard drives are more than just storage space. Hard drives also have varying levels of performance. On almost every home computer, the hard drive is the slowest component. Mechanical hard drives that use rotating platters and magnetic readheads are limited by the laws of physics when it comes to how quickly they can find, read, and transmit information from these platters.
Drives with more platters, higher rotational speeds, and larger data buffers will run faster. Modern solid state drives (SSDs) have no moving parts at all. They can find and transfer data much faster than any mechanical drive.
If your computer uses a mechanical hard drive as its primary, it should almost always be installed on a solid state drive. In fact, it is one of the most effective updates for older computers, delivering more subjective improvements in system performance and overall responsiveness than anything else you could do.
Let the program be your guide
After all, a computer is only a means to an end. In other words, software is really important to us. This means that the main driver of your upgrade plans should be the system requirements of the applications you want to run.
When trying to decide what to update on your computer, it’s best to focus on at least the recommended requirements, not just the minimum. Because minimum requirements often mean significant user experience degradation.
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