What is the slowest part in a computer today?

ikjadoon

ikjadoon

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 21, 2006
Messages
308
It used to be the hard drive, but with the advent of SSDs, what is now the slowest part of the computer?

I mean, for regular computing (what 95% of the world does with its computers: cue in Office, Firefox, watching a movie), what's holding them back? Why are instant-on computers still far away? Why do I ever need to still wait (like opening Office 2010)? A text file (*.txt) opens instantaneously...why do programs still take 1-2 seconds?

CPUs, memory, and SSDs are all ridiculously fast for normal usage, but Windows still takes more than 10 seconds to boot up. This question isn't to buy parts or anything (haha); this is just a general question on the state of technology (as BHO prepares the State of the Union).

Thoughts?
 
You want graphics, network connectivity, intelligent data pre-caching, a minimum level of security, etc... And at the same time complaining about a 10 second OS boot up period? Or even a two second Office startup time?

I don't believe this thread topic is asking the right question; the more appropriate question would be "What level of performance would make you happy?"
 
Even with SSDs it's still the hard drive, by a country mile. Just compare RAM read and write speed to SSD speeds and you'll see why.
 
@PNTL and Magnus

"This question isn't to buy parts or anything (haha); this is just a general question on the state of technology..."

@Forceman

Well, I thought the same thing. I looked up some RAM disks, however, and they were on-par or only slightly faster than SSDs. But, your point is taken. RAM will one day take over, I imagine...or maybe SSDs and RAM will converge one day.

@drleospaceman

Thank you for the linkage; superbly interesting. So, algorithms..are we just in a phase that software is catching up to hardware? Since SSDs have been released, I have not been hugely excited about any hardware.

Ivy Bridge? Meh. DDR4 (whenever that comes out)? Hardly; DDR2 vs DDR3 was barely different. Kepler/GF104? Slightly, but people who hard-core game are a minority in relation to people who use a computer. What else is new with hardware these days that isn't an evolution? Are there any fundamental shifts around the corner that will redefine computing? I remember single core -> dual -> quad -> and now hex-core CPUs. That was pretty exciting, but what's next?

~Ibrahim~

P.S. Why do I care? No reason in particular; I almost want something to get excited about! :D Maybe technology is not the place to look, haha.
 
Well consumer level technology is not the place to look at the moment if you want the next "big thing". While there have been numerous and possibly game-changing technology that have been developed in the past few years, that kind of technology isn't due for the consumer market for at least 5 to 10 years. And thats assuming that said technology will hit the markets.

Even if that technology did hit the market, we'd still have to wait for software/firmware to catch up.

You're better off finding something else to get excited about.

Also, I don't know what you were reading but a properly setup RAM Disk can provide far greater performance than a SSD.
 
ikjadoon said:
@Forceman

Well, I thought the same thing. I looked up some RAM disks, however, and they were on-par or only slightly faster than SSDs. But, your point is taken. RAM will one day take over, I imagine...or maybe SSDs and RAM will converge one day.
Click to expand...

I wasn't talking about RAM disks (even though I think mine was something like 7 GB/sec last time I bothered to check it with HD Tune), but actual RAM. Sandy Bridge can do 20 GB/sec streaming data from RAM to the CPU. A really fast SSD does 500 MB/sec.
 
Oh, right! I remember those cards. You plugged them into a PCI-E slot and they had a couple DDR slots for RAM. With DDR3 prices this low, you'd think that would be moving somewhere.

I think it was RAM density that slowed them down, though. You only get 4 DDR slots on a card; filling that with a paltry 16GB is only $80, but to a slightly usable 32GB is a ridiculous $280.

But you're right:

iometer-512-r.jpg


Of course it was only 4GB and cost $1500 (DDRdrive X1), but that's pretty legit (I imagine the majority of the cost went into producing the card, lol): 300,000 IOPS, anyone?

There's my instant boot-up computer right there. :D
 
The SSD/HDDs for sure.


Generally, the speed of something is inversely proportional with the storage size (which is exponentially bigger as you reduce the size).

Consider
- The L1 cache on a CPU
- The L2 cache on a CPU
- The L3 and L4 (on some models) cache on a CPU
- The RAM
- The SSD

And if we extend this analogy further
- An HDD (magnetic)
 
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