question regarding specs that increase performance

all,

Here's what I generally have open at the same time on any development machine (windows) that I use:

10 firefox tabs
Excel (2 instances)
Access (2 instances)
Skype
A screen sharing program (like GoToMeeting / join.me)
1 youtube video

I'm thinking what I need for specs on a win 8 machine to get this to lightning speed would be at least a quad-core processor of somekind and then at least 8GB of RAM. Does this sound reasonable to you guys here, or does it sound like overkill?

thanks guys.

I don't think so, you can always add or remove Ram. So you would want a Phenom (AMD) or a i3 (Intel) processor - I think you can upgrade to better CPUs later. 8 GB Ram should be plenty, right now I have only 2 cores, 2 GB Ram, and I keep about 6 Chrome Instances running and just about the same amount of other stuff running as you have, and it's not slow in the least, unless I neglect to shut down Chrome once in a while and let cCleaner dump the excess temp files. If I don't do that, then it gets clogged up somewhat.

XweAponX said:

I don't think so, you can always add or remove Ram. So you would want a Phenom (AMD) or a i3 (Intel) processor - I think you can upgrade to better CPUs later. 8 GB Ram should be plenty, right now I have only 2 cores, 2 GB Ram, and I keep about 6 Chrome Instances running and just about the same amount of other stuff running as you have, and it's not slow in the least, unless I neglect to shut down Chrome once in a while and let cCleaner dump the excess temp files. If I don't do that, then it gets clogged up somewhat.

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You run 6 chrome instances!? Heck, the last time I check the Chrome browser took 5-6 process threads just to boot up one instance and keep it running! Has it changed since then?

How often do you run cCleaner? Is it a good idea to let you temp cache get so big that whatever NEW you are downloading has to start replacing old files because there is no more allocated free space for the temp dir? By the way, I am asking sort of the same stuff on the Win 7 forum: You may want to take a look, there's a lot of information that has been given there so far by many people:

question about RAM, Processor Speed and Video Cards (combination) - Windows 7 Help Forums

thanks.

I meant Tabs in Chrome, not individual instances, but each tab creates an instance of it's own in Task Manager, plus the extensions add an instance as well. cCleaner cleans it all out automatically when I shut it down, I got the Pro Version.

I wouldn't worry about speed with the specs you are suggesting though, if only I had the same specs, if you set up a system with a quad core and 8 GB Ram, it should server whatever purpose you need it for. What I'm saying is that Windows 8 will handle the resources better than 7 can handle them, 8 is many times faster, and I've proved that through the Aero Assessment AND other benchmark programs.

XweAponX said:

I meant Tabs in Chrome, not individual instances, but each tab creates an instance of it's own in Task Manager, plus the extensions add an instance as well. cCleaner cleans it all out automatically when I shut it down, I got the Pro Version.

I wouldn't worry about speed with the specs you are suggesting though, if only I had the same specs, if you set up a system with a quad core and 8 GB Ram, it should server whatever purpose you need it for. What I'm saying is that Windows 8 will handle the resources better than 7 can handle them, 8 is many times faster, and I've proved that through the Aero Assessment AND other benchmark programs.

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great! you've been incredibly helpful! if there is anything else that you want to add, please do so. have a great night.

Well, take it from me, I never would have upgraded both of my main systems to 8 unless it were the case. I originally installed 8 as an experiment, but I was impressed with the increase in desktop speed and stability, so I kept it and installed it in my 2nd machine.

But I don't use the "Start Screen" at all, i installed Start8 and Classic shell and I never bother with the "metro" side at all, my system boots to the desktop. If I can avoid using the charms bar at all, I do it.

Running Windows from an SSD instead of a standard hard drive will boost performance considerably.

I moved my Media computer from a 500 GB WD Sata drive to a 750 GB Seagate Hybrid drive. My speed went up an order of magnitude. I had the same drive in my Gateway Laptop before the power block went out and with Windows 7 it was blazing fast. The thing about SSD drives is you have to use special programs to optimize them, like Raxco Perfect Disk. Windows 8 however has a Drive Optimizer in it rather than a Defragger.

XweAponX said:

I moved my Media computer from a 500 GB WD Sata drive to a 750 GB Seagate Hybrid drive. My speed went up an order of magnitude. I had the same drive in my Gateway Laptop before the power block went out and with Windows 7 it was blazing fast. The thing about SSD drives is you have to use special programs to optimize them, like Raxco Perfect Disk. Windows 8 however has a Drive Optimizer in it rather than a Defragger.

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You have been getting bad advice bud. You do not need any special program to run an ssd. It is just a sata drive, nothing more. You only think it's fast till you try a good ssd, then you will see fast.

I had a Toshiba satellite laptop that had an SSD drive in it. The owner had been running Defraggler which was messing it up. I delete it and install Raxco Perfect Disk, which optimizes it instead of defragging it. The system was much faster after I optimised the drive, but it really wasn't much faster than my Gateway laptop when I had the Hybrid drive in, which is part mechanical and part SSD.

But I'm not referring to RUNNING an SSD Drive, I was referring to maintaining it. You can't use the same kinds of Hard Drive testing tools you use for regular mechanical drives, you have to use what the OEM has for it. I can use those tools on the Hybrid drive cos the data is on the mechanical portion of the drive, but on an SSD drive you can't use those. I'm not sure what to use, the Toshiba system had it's own software for checking the SSD drive.

For the shear responsiveness of W8 an SSD is unequaled upgrade. Now, most of reluctance people have when thinking about upgrading to SSD comes from early models that had issues with price, durability and small capacities which are mostly solved in later models. Win8 is also aware of SSD presence and when doing a clean install on it there's very little you have to do except for stuff you did to a system with HDD. Most of the maintenance on SSD is done within the drive (garbage collection and optimization), the Trim command, vital to SSD maintenance and de-fragmentation are properly handled by system and except for ensuring that all is done properly there's nothing else that needs to be be done.
As for number of processor cores and it's frequency, widows will not see great improvement going from, let's say dual to 4, 6 or 8 cores but certain programs that are multy threaded will. Therefore you have to look at the applications you use to see if you need more powerful processor, not the windows only.
Amount of memory will also depend on kind and number of apps you use, with 1GB per core would be about minimum for non demanding work. Photoshop and like apps benefit greatly from larger amounts of memory but to some other ones there's no benefit at all.
There's also the need ti distinguish between apps that are open at the time and them actually doing something at the same time. In the first instance, amount of memory is more important and in latter case, faster processor with more cores AND amount of memory would do good.
I would suggest an app called "Meminfo" to check how much memory you are using at the time when all of your required programs are running and "Speedfan" that will show you how much of each core is used and with that data decide if and what you need more of.

XweAponX said:

I had a Toshiba satellite laptop that had an SSD drive in it. The owner had been running Defraggler which was messing it up. I delete it and install Raxco Perfect Disk, which optimizes it instead of defragging it. The system was much faster after I optimised the drive, but it really wasn't much faster than my Gateway laptop when I had the Hybrid drive in, which is part mechanical and part SSD.

But I'm not referring to RUNNING an SSD Drive, I was referring to maintaining it. You can't use the same kinds of Hard Drive testing tools you use for regular mechanical drives, you have to use what the OEM has for it. I can use those tools on the Hybrid drive cos the data is on the mechanical portion of the drive, but on an SSD drive you can't use those. I'm not sure what to use, the Toshiba system had it's own software for checking the SSD drive.

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You absolutely can use the same kind of testing tools.

Typically all they do is save files to disk, then read to check for integrity of the write.

I'm on my 3rd SSD now, never used any sort of special software for maintaining/testing//benchmarking any of them.

And a hybrid drive is nowhere near as fast as a proper SSD. My Samsung 840 Pro is about 5 times as fast as a seagate momentus XT.

Lol im running 12 instances of chrome, task manager, windows defender scan, control panel window, xampp apache & mysql server on. 1 chrome tab got youtube video playing music/music videos, skype & some more stuff.

Processor: AMD PHENOM II X4 955 BE (3.2Ghz >> OC 3.4Ghz)
Ram: 2x4gb 1333Mhz DDR3 CL9
Hard-disk: Spinpoint 3.5 F3 7.2k 1TB

Basically im programmer & i got dozens of stuffs opened all the time.

Mursa said:

Lol im running 12 instances of chrome, task manager, windows defender scan, control panel window, xampp apache & mysql server on. 1 chrome tab got youtube video playing music/music videos, skype & some more stuff.

Processor: AMD PHENOM II X4 955 BE (3.2Ghz >> OC 3.4Ghz)
Ram: 2x4gb 1333Mhz DDR3 CL9
Hard-disk: Spinpoint 3.5 F3 7.2k 1TB

Basically im programmer & i got dozens of stuffs opened all the time.

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Do you have PF disabled ? I have similar setup, just a 965 BE @ 4.2GHz and same amount of memory, PF disabled without any ill effects despite bunch of programs running on 2 screens. Of course I have few programs that could benefit from more memory but when using them I just shut unnecessary ones until finished with them. Using "Meminfo" program to monitor memory usage I barely ever see memory getting saturated to the level when it would make a problem. There's also an SSD but with PF disabled it does not get into equation.
In my experience, 1GB per core would be a minimum for comfortable work, 2GB/core a sweet spot and more than that just for programs that are really hungry for memory and just to accelerate them, not that they would not work with less.

Been using ssd's since they came out. I currently have a couple of plextors, 2 sammy 840 pros, 1 sammy evo, a few M4's, couple of Intel 520's, you get the picture.

I have never used anything to "maintain" them. They all have trim and GC and that easily suffices with just about any current ssd.

XweAponX said:

I had a Toshiba satellite laptop that had an SSD drive in it. The owner had been running Defraggler which was messing it up. I delete it and install Raxco Perfect Disk, which optimizes it instead of defragging it. The system was much faster after I optimised the drive, but it really wasn't much faster than my Gateway laptop when I had the Hybrid drive in, which is part mechanical and part SSD.

But I'm not referring to RUNNING an SSD Drive, I was referring to maintaining it. You can't use the same kinds of Hard Drive testing tools you use for regular mechanical drives, you have to use what the OEM has for it. I can use those tools on the Hybrid drive cos the data is on the mechanical portion of the drive, but on an SSD drive you can't use those. I'm not sure what to use, the Toshiba system had it's own software for checking the SSD drive.

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That's just it, you don't need a specialized or any other tools to keep newer SSDs optimized on Win7 and 8. All you have to do is to confirm that AHCI is enabled in the BIOS and that in Windows TRIM is enabled and disk defragmenter is set to OFF for it. What you probably meant is to maintain disk clean so some space is saved because SSDs are still relatively small comparing to large HDDs that we are spoiled to have lately. It is nice to have a good amount of space free on SSD because of the way that GC works on them. You might also set the system up so you have less writing on it by changing the place of default temporary and downloaded files (music, pictures etc.) to a spinner drive if you have it in the computer.