Which would make notebook computer faster

Hello, I am new to this and currently am bidding on a CPU, need the answer within the next 2 hours so I can retract if it will not help. I was wondering which would make my laptop faster. I currently have a Dell XPS 1340 with 320gb HDD(7200) 4GB DDR3 RAM and an Intel Core 2 Duo P8700 CPU. Would upgrading to 6GB DDR3 RAM make it faster or CPU to Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 or T9800? I am willing to spend about 250 and currently the CPU is under 250 and RAM is about 140. Besides the price what would you recommend? I have 3 IE8 tabs open or Firefox tabs open and MS word my CPU maxs out, I knwo this because when Task Manager is open CPU is 100% and RAM is about 50-70%. I believe upgrading the CPU would solve the problem but someone from my college whos in the CS program said upgrading RAM. If anyone could help it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

 

get an intel x-25m 80G G2 SSD with your budget, which will change the speed for the whole thing significantly.

 

the only problem is that I have more than 80 GB worth of files, and if I use my current HDD as a spare it would make it slow right? Not really sure if HDD matter that much for CPU maxing out would it?

Oh forgot to mention the only reason I inquired about CPU or RAM is because I was just going to sell them on ebay. Thank you for the quick reply though. Do you think any SSD would make it faster?

 

You probably should buy a new i core laptop with SSD. XPS 13 will be announced very soon.

 

I could, but i really cant afford to purchase a new laptop when this one is only about 4 months old. I didn't really want to sell the whole laptop on ebay either, sorry for not mentioning that earlier.

 

The question is why your CPU is always maxed at 100%. Either you are running lots of number-crunching programs or you have massive spyware.
RAM will always be high usage (at least in Vista and higher) due to caching. Unused RAM is useless RAM.

 

Yea that is a good point, I use spybot search and destroy and finds nothing. When task manager is open it just shows the basic Microsoft services running in the background. Most of these programs are 32bit and I have 64bit so maybe it is because of that. I can list the programs that are running when it gets maxed out. Maybe the CPu is getting bad. because I put a P8400 in and had no problem of maxing out, while using the same programs.

 

Have to jump in here with my thoughts:

RAM does not make a machine faster (you can just have more programs open at the same time).

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5611835#post5611835


An SSD does not make the computer faster either (it can make it more 'snappy', but 'snap' is not 'faster').

The CPU is the only thing that will make your computer faster (for the stated usage pattern), but like it was previously mentioned; why is your CPU maxed out so often? Virus, or do you need updated drivers or even a clean install of the O/S?

For the price you're stating, an SSD would be a step backwards (not big enough and not 'good' enough - only consider an Intel for the next few months forward) and RAM will quickly seem like a letdown when your CPU is maxing out for whatever reason.

The CPU upgrade will definitely give you a faster system - assuming you 'fix' whatever is maxing out the current CPU first.

Good luck.

 

spybot search and destroy is not very good. I think you only need MSE.

 

alright thank you tilleroftheearth and everyone else. I just did a clean install of vista home premium x64 last night updated drivers and still happens. I had windows 7 home premium on it previously and still did the same thing. I can only hope that ~.300 mhz will increase it and stop the maxing out. I am going to download malware bytes and do a scan. could it be from the second user that vista has by default? I am administrator and thats the only one on the system. I notice there is a lot more programs running when I click show processes from all users. Thank you all so much for replying.

 

Can you see which process use 100% cpu time?

 

Hmmm... clean install and same thing happening?

Are you installing the drivers in the right order?

For example, here is how Sony wants/needs the drivers installed for their VAIO line:

See:
http://esupport.sony.com/CA/perl/support-info.pl?info_id=507&template_id=1


Also, are you only running one Anti-Virus program? I recommend to do another clean install (Win 7 highly recommended), uninstall all A/V software the manufacturer thinks you should be using - and, install Microsoft Security Essentials only.

With MSE, I replaced 4 programs: Avast Pro, Spybot S&D, AdAware and SpyBlaster. The computers have never run so good as they do with MSE.

Good luck.

 

Before I installed vista this time I formatted the HDD, but I have Avast Pro, and spybot, just installed MSE and malwarebytes. This system didnt include any A/V software. And for the drivers I used the driver cd for the laptop and installed them in order they were shown on the dvd. So im assuming I did it in the right order. And to yejun Iexplorer.exe is using most of the Memory and CPU, next is DWM.exe then explorer.exe.

 

no. it makes a lot of tasks he might do faster => it's a faster computer. booting, starting apps. and it gives more percieved speed (snappiness). which IS speed enhancement, too. tons of tiny enhancements.

a faster cpu will only let that thing running at 100% cpu run faster. which is obviously NOTHING he actually uses. that means, the cpu will NOT make his system faster, it will only make the bug faster that appears on his system. bug, or spyware, or what ever.

300mhz more cpu won't make a dent, there, too. so they're a step backwards, too.

no, it won't. just fix the problem. THAT will give new headroom for the system. the 300mhz will be some percent difference, nothing he will ever notice if not measuring it.

 

'more memory' does not make a system faster.

Under the right conditions, more memory can help to minimize system pagefile usage, which is what you really want to do (disk being slower than any kind of ram).

Your system will always run at the same speed. By minimizing the use of the page file, your system is in fewer wait states for both real memory allocation and the (more or less) constant disk IO servicing VMM requests. Fewer system-level wait states and lessened VMM disk IO translates into more CPU time available for user programs.

A 32bit OS will only address 4Gb of ram no matter how much you have installed. In a wintel/x86 system. this 4Gb limit is reduced by the need to provide memory mapped address space for the systemboard I/O components and any IGP/shared memory that is in use.

A 64bit OS pushes way past the 32bit 4Gb limits, but you still have a 'loss' of ram because of the motherboard device issue (again including the IGP/shared memory issue).

 

Probably don't use IE, it is slow as always. Also try new flash 10.1. The only time browser use 100% cpu is when I play flash game like farmville and cafe world.

 

Should system Idle Process being using up most of my CPU? right now it is at 70% that being the highest then MSMPeng.exe.

 

system idle process isnt using cpu, its basically saying how much of the cpu is unused. read this http://www.dslreports.com/faq/7481

 

Never because the HDD will never be as fast as the CPU, however the faster the better obviously.

 

When looking at proccesses find the one eating the CPU. Just ridding yourself of this will be worth more to your system than the CPU upgrade..........

 

since I have downloaded MSE and antimalwarebytes, i have not experienced the issue, they both finished a full scan with positive results. I uninstalled avast and spybot. Thank you everyone for being so helpful.

 

which browser do you think I should use for x64 system?

 

Just to reply to davepermen's comments (and clarify my position for jn3al1 too):

A 'snappy' computer is not a faster computer - there is a difference. By 'faster' I mean a more productive computer; ie. a system that produces more 'work'.

Snappy and faster do not necessarily go together. I would love both, but right now an Intel G2 SSD has 'snap' to spare, while a VRaptor/Raptor setup can produce more work in the same amount of time.

To me, a faster user experience is a 'snappy' computer - a fast computer may or may not have the same fast user experience - but a fast computer is definitely more productive.

And, the one thing I know that makes a computer fast is the CPU - yes, even 300 Mhz will be enough to 'feel' - especially if it is based on a newer/better platform or has more cache, etc.

Hope this clears up this issue (and again, for davepermen ).

To read further on this 'snap' vs. productivity improvement:

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=436882&highlight=The+SSD+Myth+Exposed


jn3al1, use whichever browser works best for you. Currently, in addition to IE8, I am liking/using Safari too (the web 'looks' better on it somehow).

Good luck.

 

snappy=less OS latency, faster(more productive)=less latency on finishing certain workload...

 

Who's to say there's a difference between fast and snappy? To me, fast = takes less time, whether that be booting up the OS or loading a program, and an SSD will help a lot with that. If your processor is maxing out from running a performance intesive program, or multiple programs at once, then yes upgrading the processor will help with that. The way I see it, you can have a really fast processor, and lots of ram, but a hard-drive will still be a bottleneck in many scenarios. In the end it's your decision what is best for your needs.

 

and there you are, and there you are wrong. if all you do with your computer is set up a job, and walk away, and let it run for hours. yes, you're right. but most users don't. they open stuff, close stuff, start stuff, load stuff, save stuff all the time. for them, a snappy computer IS a more fast computer, as it's more responsive to deliver what they want.

 

Common, more memory or SSD will not drop CPU usage in this case, some indirect correlation, granted, but the OP is clearly looking at a different problem. Tiller seems to understand the situation best.