Articles on PC Performance

The PCI-express slot may not be a stranger to you, after all, that is the place where you insert your graphics card all the while. PCI-Express 2.0 isn’t any much different from its predecessor. In fact, if you are hoping for something totally different, then you are in for a disappointment. PCI-Express 2.0 is basically the same as PCI-Express 1.x, except for some improvement in its performance.

One year down the road after PCI-SIG announced the release of PCI-Express 2.0, we have started to see more and more PCI-Express 2.0 hardware appearing on the market. While it is still new, it is useful to understand what PCI-Express 2.0 is and how it affects you.

How PCI- Express works?

Just in case you have forgotten what PCI-Express is, it is a connection slot meant to replace both PCI and AGP slot. How PCI-Express works is based on the concept of lanes, analogous to highway lanes. The more lanes you have, the more traffic you can move. The number of lanes in a PCI-Express slot can start from 1 and a maximum of 16. The amount of traffic each lane can carry in a single direction is 250MB/s. This means that a PCI-Express 16x slot (16 lanes) has a maximum bandwidth of 250 x 16 x 2 = 8.0GB/s in dual direction. That is considered fast, compared to the previous PCI and AGP slot. Nowadays, most graphics cards are using the 16x PCI-Express to handle the heavy graphics processing and for 3D acceleration.

What has changed in PCI-Express 2.0?

In PCI-Express 2.0, the concept of lanes still exists. What has changed is that the width of the lanes has doubled. A PCI-Express 16x can now carry up to a 16 GB/s of data, up from 8GB/s in PCI-Express 1.x.

To fully utilize PCI-Express 2.0 and take advantage of the extra bandwidth, you will need both a PCI-Express 2.0 motherboard and a PCI-Express 2.0 compliant video card such as the GeForce 8800GT or the Radeon HD 4870. Luckily, PCI-Express 2.0 is designed to be both backward and forward compatible, which means that you can still use your new PCI-Express 2.0 video card on your old motherboard (or vice versa), although the speed will be restricted to the slower one.

Motherboards that support PCI-Express slot

PCI-Express 2.0 slot was first introduced with the short life Intel X38 chipset and is now being carried on by Intel’s X48, AMD’s 790/770 family and Nvidia’s nForce 7 series. Some great boards that support PCI-Express 2.0 include:

• EVGA nforce 780i SLI Motherboard
• MSI K9A2 Platinum Motherboard
• Asus Rampage Formula Motherboard

Do you really need PCI-Express 2.0?

With the extra bandwidth, one may expect a better PC and graphics performance. Sadly to say, that is not true, as yet. The situation is the same when Intel launched their quad core CPU. The technology is too fast for current applications to catch up. In the context of PCI-Express 2.0, most games are not designed to utilize the technology and even with both a PCI-Express 2.0 motherboard and graphics cards, you are not going to see huge improvement. At this point of time, it is not a ‘must-have’ feature, but if you are planning for a major upgrade of your system, then it will be worthwhile to include a PCI-Express 2.0 capable motherboard and video card in your plan.

When you first run Windows Vista on your newly built PC, it boots up very quickly. After installing several applications such as anti-virus, spyware, office suite, the performance suddenly become very sluggish. You may be wondering, “What happened to my PC?”

Most people upgrade their PC in the hope of having a faster system. What they didn’t know is that no matter how good their hardware is, if they allow a lot of memory intensive applications to choke up the OS, the performance will still be slow.

If you are using Windows Vista, here are some tips to help you optimize for faster performance.

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When you bought a new hardware (or upgrade the whole computer), you want to know if there is any performance gained over the old system and whether your money is well spent. The best way to find out is to do a benchmarking: Run your old hardware/system through a series of test and record down the score. Replace with the new hardware and run through the same series of test again. Record down the score and compare it with base score. If there is no (or minimal) improvement, you know that you are not getting the best deal for the new hardware.

In addition, hardware performance deteriorates over time. Frequent benchmarking can inform you about the health of your system (or hardware) and whether it is time to upgrade your hardware.
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No matter how fast your processor runs, or how big your memory is, if your hard drive can’t keep up with the speed, you are still stuck with a slow system. A simple way to boost up the speed of the hard drive is to use two or more identical drives and set them up in a RAID setting.

RAID is the acronym for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. It is a method that utilizes multiple identical hard drives to exceed the performance of a larger and more expensive hard drive.
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Computer Motherboard monitoring software

Sometime, it pays to be extra careful. You can make use of this computer motherboard monitoring software to find out if your gaming computer is too hot. Motherboard Monitor monitors and reports the temperature inside your computer case. When your computer parts reach a critical temperature, it will alarm you and automatically shut down your computer before anything gets damaged. Else, it will just quietly sit in the system tray of your desktop.

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What’s next? – Case Cooling

Case cooling is the next important thing of the whole cooling process. With all the heat piling up inside the computer case, there is a need to purge the hot air out and replaced it with cool air.

Case cooling involves more than just adding cooling fans. It requires careful planning and paying attention to small details. Here are some useful ways to cool your computer case.
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Protecting the RAM

The RAM can get very hot when it is loaded with heavy application. This is especially true when insufficient memories are installed in your computer. Overheating also occur when you overclock the RAM. When the RAM overheats, you will start to experience hanging screen, sudden blackout or the famous Windows blue error screen. Whatever it is, it is definitely not a good experience.
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I have compiled some basic computer troubleshooting tips for you. If you have any queries or problems that need us to troubleshoot for you, feel free to contact us.

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It is cool to see hot babes running around, but it will be a disaster if you have a hot computer running on your desk. After investing all your pocket money on your ideal gaming computer, the last thing that you want to see is all your gaming hardware burning up in flames.

Overheating is the most common problem faced by gamers. A gaming computer running graphics intensive 3D games for 5-8 hours continuously can generate heat with temperature high enough to boil water. If no proper cooling is done to dissipate the heat, chances are that your gaming computer will get damages beyond repair very soon.

First line of defence – Cool Your CPU

With the enormous amount of calcuation that it has to do every microsecond, it is no surprise that the CPU is the most likely candidate to get overheated. In fact, it is also the computer part that generated the most heat.

A CPU heatsink with fan

The way to cool your CPU is to use a heatsink. The heatsink is a big solid piece of metal that is attached to the surface of the CPU (see left diagram). It has large parallel fins lining on its surface to conduct heat away from the CPU. Heatsink is usually made of aluminium material due to its high thermal conductivity and inexpensive price.

The heatsink is usually included in the package when you buy a boxed CPU. For OEM CPU, you have to get the heatsink separately. Conventionally, all the fins on the heatsink are lined in a single direction. The problem with this design is that air can only move through the fins in a single direction, creating a problem of air flow within the computer case. A newer design which has multiple threads running on the fins surface has greatly improved the efficiency of the heatsink.

Placing the heatsink

When placing the heatsink, it is important to seat it properly on the CPU. Any misplacement or gaps between the CPU and heatsink allow the CPU to be overheated. To further improve the thermal conductivity, some gamers insert a thin copper heat spreader between the CPU and the heatsink. Though it is not a ‘must-have’ component, it does help in dissipating the heat away.

Applying the thermal grease

Another important item is the thermal grease (some call it the thermal paste). Due to its high thermal conductivity and low resistance, thermal grease is essential to proper CPU cooling. It is a must to apply thermal grease on the surface of the CPU before seating the heatsink on it. Without the thermal grease, even the best heatsink will fail to work properly. For maximum efficiency, the thermal grease must be applied in a very thin and even film. Care must also be taken not to apply too much on the CPU as it can hinder the performance of the heatsink.

Function of the CPU cooling fan?

Heatsink can only transfer heat from the CPU to its metal fins. To dissipate the heat away from its metal surface, it needs a continuous stream of moving air to carry the heat away. This is where the CPU cooling fan comes into play. Attached to the top of the heatsink, the CPU cooling fan sucks the hot air out from the heatsink and blows a constant stream of cool air to the fins. Internally controlled by the motherboard, the fan can increase its speed when the CPU temperature gets too high.

Different type of CPU has different mounting configuration for its cooling fan. Therefore, when choosing a CPU cooling fan, ensure that it is compatible with the CPU in your computer.

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Overclocking is the best way to get a significant boost in the speed of your system at no cost at all.

But what exactly is ‘overclocking’?

It is the process of forcing the processor to run at a higher clock rate than its specification. The processor is made to run at certain frequencies (clock rates). The higher the frequency, the more calculations it can compute. Instead of buying a 3GHz processor, you can now make a 2GHz processor runs at 3GHz. In this case, you can save the time, effort and money needed to upgrade your system.

PC enthusiasts usually overclock their computer to increase the performance. Some of these enthusiasts purchase low-end computer components so they can overclock to achieve the performance of a high-end system. However, if all you do on your computer is word processing, email and simple tasks, overclocking will not give you a noticeable performance boost. For gamers and those who are doing computationally heavy tasks, overclocking is the best way to transform your system from a Daihatsu to a Ferrari.

There are some risks involved in overclocking. Firstly, you will be voiding your warranty. This is logical as you are making the chips run at a higher speed than its specification and there is a possibility that it could break. Though the risk of the chip breaking is small, the manufacturer will not want to cover this risk. In addition, the manufacturer disapproves of any overclocking act as it means there is a lesser demand for the higher speed processors which could bring them a much higher profit. If the processor breaks, the whole system might be destroyed. Therefore, overclock at your own risk.

The main components used for overclocking are the processor and video card. The two things to consider when overclocking a component are the power supplied to the component and its cooling ability.

When overclocking, be sure to match the proper amount of power for its new speed. Providing too much power could permanently damage a component. You have to find a balance.

It is necessary to supply the proper amount of power to the component for its new speed. However, providing too much power could permanently damage the component. You have to find the balance.

With the increase in speed, the heat generated will also increase. If too much heat is introduced to the system, it might destroy the functionality of the components, and in extreme cases, even cause them to catch fire. Therefore, sufficient cooling is paramount to a successful overclock. Some of the cooling agents used are forced convection (a fan blowing across a surface), Liquid Cooling (liquid coolant carrying waste heat to a radiator, similar to an automobile engine), liquid nitrogen, dry ice, phase change cooling (as used in refrigerators), and submersion (placing the entire computer in an inert fluid).

To overclock the processor, there are two settings that you must be aware of:

• the multiplier
• the Front Side Bus (FSB).

These two settings, when multiplied together, produce the frequency at which the CPU operates - for example, with a multiplier of 11 and a FSB of 200MHz, the CPU is running at 2.2GHz. By adjusting the multiplier value (usually an integer), higher speed can be achieved. It is advisable to do this by small increments at a time. A sudden increase will cause the system to be unstable and might lead to its destruction. Bit by bit, you can push the system to its extreme. Remember to increase its voltage as you do this. To test the performance of the overclocked processor, you can use free software such as Super-PI, Prime95, SiSoftware Sandra and Memtest86

For gaming purposes, overclocking the video card usually gives a better result than overclocking a processor. The largest performance boost usually come from overclocking the video card memory chips. So if you’re trying to keep the heat down and only want to overclock the essentials, this is what you’ll want to look at.

One application you can use to overclock the video card is PowerStrip (available from http://www.entechtaiwan.com). After installation, you can select ‘Performance Profiles’ and then ‘Configure’ from the menu. This is where you can see the Engine clock and Memory clock. Slowly increase the Engine clock in 5MHz increments and run the benchmark application. When you start to see a peculiar shape, this is its fastest possible speed. Move the slider back to its previous successful overclock and that is the core frequency. Repeat the same step with the memory clock. When this is done, your video card will be overclocked to its maximum. Before you run the application, remember to provide enough cooling agent to the video card as the overclocking process will bring up its temperature a few notches.

With the extra speed boosts, you will definitely be able to do much more things with your system. Hopefully this article has provided you with an insight into the overclocking world. Welcome to the overclocking community and all the best to your overclocking endeavours.