September 28, 2009

Anybody who gets into system building will soon enough hear the term “Overclocking” tossed around left and right. As such, it helps to have at least a basic understanding of what this is, and how to go about it if you wish.

Simply put, overclocking is increasing the speed of one or more of your core computer components (usually your CPU) to achieve greater performance. In so doing, you can breathe new life into an older system and bring it more up to date, or get cutting edge performance from second- or third-tier products. While the most commonly overclocked component is the CPU, you can also overclock your RAM, and even most modern video cards.

However, overclocking isn’t without it’s downside as well. In order to keep your overclocked components stable so your system won’t crash, you have to increase the voltage to them, which increases the heat and rapidly speeds up chip wear. A drastically overclocked CPU, for example, will only last a fraction of the lifetime of a stock chip. Additionally, you have to ensure adequate cooling of the overclocked component, or you can very easily melt what you’re trying to speed up. Additionally, overclocking will most likely void your factory warranty, meaning you can be out a significant amount of money if you do end up turning your chip into slag.

Still, if after all that you are interested in giving it a try, the process is fairly simply though time-consuming. To overclock a CPU or your RAM you will need a fairly new motherboard with advanced BIOS controls so you can tweak the required settings. You then have to find the proper voltage to support your desired clock speed, keeping it as low as possible so the chip stays cool, but high enough that your system doesn’t crash. The most important (and time-consuming) part of the process, however, is testing. You need to stress test your system for hours at your chosen settings to ensure stability, tweak the settings, then test some more.

A more in-depth guide to overclocking your CPU will come later, as well as detailed instructions on how to test your setup. In the meantime, The Tech Report has a great guide for the whole process here.

Additionally, Benchmarkreviews.com, a dedicated overclocking enthusiast site, has another beginners guidehere.

September 21, 2009

Another popular upgrade due to its ease and low-cost is replacing your existing hard drive with a higher-capacity drive. Unlike the memory your computer uses while processing requests (RAM), the memory on your hard drive is where you can store all of your files. Having a larger hard drive (or Hard Disk Drive, HDD), allows you to store more documents, music, movies, photos, or anything else you need, and can also give your computer a slight performance boost. To determine if you need a new, larger hard drive, double-click on your My Computer icon, then right-click on your C-Drive. Select "Properties" from the list that appears, and check out the graph showing your drive usage. The more blue you have, the more full your drive is. If you have less than about 25% left on your current drive, it is probably time to start thinking of an upgrade.

The most common sizes for hard drives these days are 80GB, 320 GB, 500 GB, 1 TB (equals 1,000 GB), and now they even have 1.5 or 2 TB drives! The capacity of your current drive and the things you use your computer for will help you determine a good size for your upgrade. If you save a lot of pictures, movies, or music for example, you might benefit from buying a large hard drive now that you can slowly fill up. You tend to get more memory for your money when you buy a larger drive, but there's no need to buy a huge drive you don't think you'll ever fill up.

While you can still find slower IDE drives, the standard these days is SATA. These plug into your motherboard with a cable like this (top), to sockets like this (middle), and then receive power from your power supply via a plug like this (bottom). Increasingly common these days are a new type of drive called "solid-state." Whereas traditional drives use spinning plates to access and store data, the new solid-state disks have no moving parts and access the information much like a thumb drive or data stick. This increases the durability of the drive and makes it less likely that the drive will fail under normal usage, and also delivers much faster data access. However, you will more than pay for these advantages if you purchase a solid-state disk, as they are considerably more expensive than their traditional counterparts.

Installation of your new drive is straightforward. A few screws will secure it in the drive bay and then it is simply plugged into the motherboard and power supply (Make sure the power supply is switched off and unplugged first!). If you don't have the space to install a second drive and are completely replacing your old drive, you will need to back up all of your data first, and then completely reinstall Windows onto your new drive.

While replacing or upgrading your hard drive is a fairly straightforward procedure, it is always best to have a trained professional help you out. Feel free to contact us if we can be of any assistance.

(HDD image courtesy of Asim18. SATA connector image used under the GNU Free Documentation License. SATA ports image used courtesy of Rudra. SATA power cable image courtesy of Ed_g2s.)

Foremost among these innovations is the elimination of the front-side bus and the integration of the memory controller on-board. This allows for bandwidth rates up to 38.4 GB/s using three channels at 1600 MHz, compared to 12.8 GB/s on a Core 2 with a 1600 MHz FSB. These chips also boast improved performance when handling multi-threaded applications, using such technologies as Intel's TurboBoost and Hyper-Threading.

Is it worth trading in your Core 2 Quad for the latest processors? Probably not. However, the advances made with these chips are impressive enough that they are probably worth the extra money when it comes time to upgrade again.

The folks over at Tom's Hardware have an excellent in-depth review and analysis (with benchmarks) for the Core i5 and i7 brands. Read it here. And TechReport.com breaks the new tech down quite well for those of us without Doctorates in Electrical Engineering. Here.

Here are Intel's official pages:
Core i7
Core i5

And you can always count on Newegg for all of your shopping needs.

(Image courtesy of Intel.)

September 7, 2009

Perhaps the easiest and most cost-effective upgrade you can do is to increase the amount of memory in your computer. Known more precisely by geeks as RAM (Random Access Memory), this type of memory is not to be confused with your hard drive, which is memory you use to store files. RAM can be thought of as "short-term" memory, which your computer uses to quickly access the files you are using at the moment, while you're hard drive is slower, "long-term" memory used for storage. Having more RAM improves your computer's performance by allowing the processor fast access to more data at one time. You will notice a greater benefit if you frequently perform memory intensive tasks such as video and audio encoding or photo editing, if you multitask a lot and have many different applications open at the same time, or if you like to play the latest games with all of the graphic settings on high.

To determine if you would benefit from more RAM, open Task Manager in Windows (press Ctrl, Alt, and Del at the same time), go to the Performance tab, and look down just below the graphs on the right side for "Physical Memory." The top number is the total amount of memory currently installed, and the second is how much is available. If you don't have much available, you might want to consider getting some more. Another way to tell is by looking at the second graph on this tab "Page File Usage History." If it is showing maxed out most of the time, having more memory might help improve your computer's performance. A more in-depth discussion of the page file and ways to tweak it to improve performance can be found here.

There are currently a few different types of RAM depending on the type of motherboard and processor you have, more common among these include: DDR, DDR2, and DDR3. DDR2 is likely the most common in use today, with DDR being mostly outdated and DDR3 the newest technology available. To determine what type of memory (and how much of it), your computer supports, go to http://www.crucial.com/ and use their free scan or advisor tool. Then you can simply purchase the correct memory from Crucial directly (an excellent memory manufacturer), or search for a deal on the right type of memory module(s) armed with your new knowledge.

Installation of the memory modules is relatively straightforward. Crack your case (of course, your computer should be off) and ground yourself (touch something metal not inside your computer). Find the memory slots which should look something like the picture to the right. The slots open by push the the tabs down and away from the memory, which will also push any installed memory up and out slightly. Remove any installed modules if necessary, then use some compressed air to blow any dust out of the slots. Being careful not to touch the gold contacts on the memory you are installing, gently push the new memory into place. Turn your computer back on and then right-click on My Computer. Select "Properties" and then look at the bottom of the information box that pops open. It should show the newly installed memory. Congratulations, you did it!

PC World has a great overview of the entire process as well as some additional information here.

Newegg.com is a great place to shop for RAM, or anything else for that matter!

(Corsair memory image used courtesy of Victorrocha and the GNU Free Documentation License. DIMM slot image is public domain.)