thinking about it.... maybe just a format and re-install would do it ?

clean up some of the junk etc.... always makes a big difference here..... your rig should be able to handle pretty much anything as it is ?

It's been fine all weekend because I rebooted to do some windows updates and haven't opened anything yet. I guarantee as soon as I've done a days work it will be slow again. Photoshop memory usage alone can run into gigabytes when you're working on five or six designs. More ram would ram would fix it right up; Bacon suggested a new mobo to me on MSN but a new socket 775 mobo is £70 anyway, plus I'd have to swap my 2x4Gb pairs for 2x8Gb anyway, it hardly seems worth it so I might as well upgrade.

but... if it used to be ok... and now it's slow.... then a format will probably fix it ?

it's surprising the difference a format/reinstall makes!

It's always been slow past a certain point, it's just bugging me even more lately as I've had more work than usual and consequently had so much open I really started to realise how unresponsive it can feel at times especially when watching a processing bar in Photoshop. A reinstall might make it a bit faster but isn't going to work miracles.

I have a computer with just 2gb ram, works perfectly well and no problems on what I run on it. My other 2 have 4gb each. The new one has 8, although that is overboard compared to what I need it to do.

Not the issue though.

Quick options: If it's just slowing down over time during the day shut the thing down during lunch and restart. Issue solved. If you are using memory as a ramdisk then reduce the amount that is specified for that task.

Pricier option: How much do you earn from doing this? If more than £10K a year then the amount you are going to spend is fairly negligible. Just upgrade to a new mobo, I7 2700K, 16gb ram, SSD boot disk and stop whining - problem solved.*

There is also the problem of resources and things like memory leaks, this can cause issues like the above and sometimes it makes no difference how much RAM you have it still ends up slow or even not working.

* don't forget to see if you can reclaim tax as this is a business expense

Maaaaaaaaan, I just want to throw money at the problem, please stop giving me sensible solutions guys, it's not gonna fly

Pricier option is more like it Serious! Firefox used to be an absolute nightmare for memory leaks, the new Aurora is behaving itself though, it rarely even crashes on me now.


As it stands I'm thinking this board recommended by Bacon, 2500K CPU and 16Gb of whatever - I might go for 2x8Gb sticks if its not much price difference to 4x4Gb sticks, then I could get 32Gb later for ultimate 'leave everything open, forever' working...

Quote from: Clock'd 0Ne on March 18, 2012, 02:48:44 AM
Pricier option is more like it Serious! Firefox used to be an absolute nightmare for memory leaks, the new Aurora is behaving itself though, it rarely even crashes on me now.


As it stands I'm thinking this board recommended by Bacon, 2500K CPU and 16Gb of whatever - I might go for 2x8Gb sticks if its not much price difference to 4x4Gb sticks, then I could get 32Gb later for ultimate 'leave everything open, forever' working...

I can do it both ways, if it really doesn't need it then I'll suggest a cheaper option. In this case it is your business and livelihood, so you need good kit. You gotta bite the bullet and spend, spend, spend! 

I would check on the extras the 2700K offers before you buy, it does have some benefits beyond the extra 100mhz.

Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 is good and reliable, providing you want to use the 7.1 sound, then you only have 3 sockets on the back. That means either using the sound off the HDMI or a separate socket.. It also has usually redundant serial and parallel interfaces on the back.

OK, that's 3K plus vat for the advice 

I'm not bothered about onboard sound at all, I have an ESI Juli@ soundcard. It will be nice to have SATA 6Gbps finally, I can squeeze a bit more performance out of my SSD

So it looks like I'm looking at around £100 for the memory, £70 for the mobo and £160 for the 2500K CPU (looking at pricing dimishing returns kicks in quickly above this, so I won't splurge on a 2700K), plus a cooler... I guess I was expecting to get away with cheaper - and I could - but there's no point spending the money if it's not going to be a worthwhile upgrade I guess. This is for my livelihood after all. I will definitely be claiming the tax back as a business expense


Given that these CPUs now have onboard graphics, does anyone know if its possible to get Windows to use the IGP for display but then to set games/other 3D apps to use my PCIe card? If so, would I need to have both cabled up to my Dell and switch display ports?

This seemed like too good a bargain to miss, so I've thrown a £30 gift voucher at it and ordered from Amazon a Crucial M4 128Gb for £89.99 delivered w/ discount

I'll get the other bits for a proper upgrade over the next month or so, as money provides.

Looks quite slow compared to the OCZ Vertex and others around that price?

nige, you selling your old stuff once you upgrade ?

I need to upgrade a machine at work

Quote from: XEntity on March 20, 2012, 00:19:02 AM
Looks quite slow compared to the OCZ Vertex and others around that price?

The others seem quite a bit more money and as far as I've seen its only slower on writes, which don't matter so much? The firmware is more reliable than Sandforce anyway I think. If you can point out a better deal though I can cancel I think.

edit: Seems decent enough according to Bit-Tech!

QuoteSadly, I couldn't find a fancy picture that has all the in-depth specs like I could with the Vertex 3. Although the M4 isn't as fast as the Vertex 3, it has a much higher IOPS count for 4kb files. Just like the Vertex 3, the M4 was also awarded by Tom's Hardware as a 2011 recommended buy, as well as claimed to be the best 2.5" SSD on the market by SSD Review.

In fact its peeing all over it according to these benchmarks?
http://www.destructoid.com/review-ocz-vertex-3-vs-crucial-m4-solid-state-drive-213810.phtml

Yes knighty I should be although I already told the bloke that's been working on my car I might do him a deal on it as he was asking, but we'll see

Cheap i5:

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/2nd-generation-intel-core-i5-2320-3-00ghz-socket-lga1155-retail-for-129-98-delivered-1171682

Cheers, I might have been tempted by that if I hadn't just bunged on the SSD. Although it seems it might work in my favour to hold fire since Ivy Bridge chips are out soon and prices should drop further, might see the 2500K around that price soon if I'm lucky.

I'm considering a second I5 2500K and I'm also waiting to see what Ivy Bridge offers, retail availability should start in April.

TBH in a fit of total rationality I actually bought the motherboard that bacon suggested, it works great given the minor limitations I stated  . As put in my thread it has a 2500K CPU and 6870 graphics. I was going to buy the AMD one, honest 

You know, if this continues, Bacon won't be able to get his head through the forum doors and you will have to enlarge them?