[Gllug] increase performance by increasing RAM or increasing in Core

[Bernard Peek]

On Sun, 2009-02-15 at 20:53 +0000, Diana Scott wrote:
> My linux box has 2Gb Ram in a Centrino at 1.7Ghz running ubuntu 8.10
> 32bit. If i were upgrade to the highest latest spec such as 4Gb Ram in
> a Dual Core processor running ubuntu 64 bit, what are the significant
> speed increases that can be easily noticeable apart from the speed of
> loading up programs ?

Adding more memory is unlikely to make a great deal of difference except
when you have a lot of memory-hungry processes running.

> 
> Would a Dual Core 1.7Ghz processor with a 2Gb Ram can be faster than a
> single Core processor with the same spec because the Dual Core has a
> double processing engine ? 

It will be faster but definitely not twice as fast. The actual increase
will depend on what you are using the system for. When I built a dual
Pentium 200 box I worked out that as a workstation it was about 50%
faster than a single processor machine. A server running a lot of tasks
might get better than 50% boost.

My rule-of-thumb has always been that it's worth upgrading a workstation
if you can double the processor clock speed. I'd say that a sensible
upgrade from a 1.7GHz single-core processor would be to 3.2GHz or to a
dual-core ~2.5GHz depending on what you use it for. If you tend to use
it to run a single big program then aim for a faster clock rather than
more cores.

If you can't manage a worthwhile upgrade then save your money until you
can.



-- 
bap @shrdlu.com 

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