[Ldee]

HI,

I've just set up a new e6400 system. The specs are as follows:

E6400 Core 2 Duo with Stock HSF processor
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 Motherboard
1 GB ddr2 800mhz (2 sticks, dual channel) Ram
Galaxy 7600 gt PCIE ddr3 256mb Graphics
250gb WD sata2 Hard Disk
ezCool 550 watt psu

And on the only IDE socket on the motherbaord:

Samsung dvd writer (master)
120gb Maxtor ide Hard Disk (slave)


My issue is, it's just not very fast. It is comparable to my old P4 3ghz, in fact I think the P4 runs a bit faster, and the P4 seems to handle multiple tasks better, which is supposedly the thing the E6400 is so great at. I'll tell a bit more about the system, I may have done something that is impeding the performance.

I set up the sata2 hardisk as follows:

Primary partition 1 - 40gb Windows and Program Installation
Primary partition 2 - 2gb Page File Partition (fixed size page file)
Primary Partition 3 - The rest of the drive for my documents and storage (something like 190gb)

I set up the IDE disk as follows:

Primary partition 1 - 2gb Page File (second one) Partition (fixed size page file)
Primary partition 2 - The rest of the drive for storage (something like 110gb)

I initally set up two page files on two seperate physical disks, I know it's not ideal to have one on the faster sata2 disk and the other on the IDE disk (7200rpm) but I tried it anyway because I've read it's best to have the page file off the system drive and completely off that physical disk if possible. Windows should assign paging activity to the physical drive in least use at any given time. Set up like this, the system was slow, so I took the page file off the 2gb drive on the IDE disk and just left the one page file on the sata2 disk. Still seems slow, about the same as before. I can't tell you the exact sizes that I set the page files to now as I'm not where the system is, but I will a bit later, anyway they were both the same size (somewhere around 1.5gb). I have not yet tested the system with an intensive game or any benchmarks, but what I have seen of it so far is that it's like the P4 or a little worse. Perhaps this is normal? I have not overclocked anything yet. Oh, it was quite a bit faster before I installed sp2 and the updates and net framework 2 (I did not install net framework 1 or 1.1), but the p4 is faster without sp2 so i think this is normal.

Any comments much appreciated

Thanks!

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Have a read of these pages

Sizing the Page File

http://www.theelderg...e_page_file.htm

If the Total Commit Charge exceeds the Total Physical Memory, XP has to use the virtual memory page file that is substantially slower than physical memory, suffering performance degradation as a result. One excellent reason to load the system with RAM.
Compare the Commit Charge Peak to the Physical Memory Total. If the Commit Charge peak is higher than the Physical Memory Total, not only is the page file being used, but the System Cache is not being used. Keeping the installed RAM well above the average Commit Charge peak allows XP to use the extra RAM for System Cache.
Keeping the Commit Charge Peak running well below the Total Physical Memory allows you to decrease the size of the page file, reclaiming hard drive real estate that can be used for storage rather than slow virtual memory

[peter99]

Have a read of these pages

Sizing the Page File

http://www.theelderg...e_page_file.htm

If the Total Commit Charge exceeds the Total Physical Memory, XP has to use the virtual memory page file that is substantially slower than physical memory, suffering performance degradation as a result. One excellent reason to load the system with RAM.
Compare the Commit Charge Peak to the Physical Memory Total. If the Commit Charge peak is higher than the Physical Memory Total, not only is the page file being used, but the System Cache is not being used. Keeping the installed RAM well above the average Commit Charge peak allows XP to use the extra RAM for System Cache.
Keeping the Commit Charge Peak running well below the Total Physical Memory allows you to decrease the size of the page file, reclaiming hard drive real estate that can be used for storage rather than slow virtual memory

[Ldee]

Thank you for your reply peter, I'll have a read of this in a few hours when I have time.

[SRX660]

If you are using the IDE hard drive just for data it's probably OK. Otherwise by setting it as slave to the cdrom drive it is limited to the same speed as the dvd drive which is about 7.62 megabytes per second.

Are you sure that the computer is slow or is the operator slow.I was testing a new Core2 Duo computer for a friend and found it only slightly faster in real working conditions than my Intel 3.0 prescott computer.I really think its faster in execution but the problem is that i am not faster in my execution. The computer is waiting for my next move before it can do anything. I did notice programs come up slightly faster and large JPG and BMP pictures render faster. You can't really expect a quantum leap in speed here. There is also the thing that most of the software is built for slower running systems so there's no advantage for the newest cpu's.

SRX660

[Ldee]

Thanks for your reply SRX660.

In response to your question of whether it's me or the computer that's slow, well, the computer is not waiting for my next move, as you suggested it might be. As usual, I am waiting for it to finish before I can make my next move, I just thought i'd be waiting less now with the new system. I have read quite a few accounts of people saying that they have situations like firefox with multiple tabs running, media player running and burning a dvd and not even getting a hiccup or firefox greying out the tab they select while it's trying to open it (or pause while it's opening a new tab). This is far from my experience, and I've heard stories that claim people are pushing it more than that too, obviously with far better performance that I'm experiencing.

In regards to the paging suggestions by peter, I have read through that and other info and I have settled on my amount now, still performance is the same.