[thebeliever1984]

Hey Folks at Geekstogo,

I used to work in the computer department of a well-known electronics retailer a couple of years back. Thing is they taught me some things on pc's, and within the last year i have come to know that some of the information they gave me is not entirely accurate. For instance, they told me that the processor speed and the amount of memory on your pc is what determines the speed of your pc. But i know some that say the hard drive space is what determines the speed of your pc. I guess my question is, What really determines how fast a pc runs?

Thanks

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Too many factors to look at to determine the speed of a machine.

Processor and memory are one thing, but the chipset used can be another, as many years ago it was perfectly possible to put a decent processor on a rubbish chipset.
Hard drive can play a factor too, but usually only if it's relatively full or on the way out.
State of the operating system and the programs plays a part too.

You can easily have a system that wipes the floor on paper, but performs relatively badly..

[Neil Jones]

Too many factors to look at to determine the speed of a machine.

Processor and memory are one thing, but the chipset used can be another, as many years ago it was perfectly possible to put a decent processor on a rubbish chipset.
Hard drive can play a factor too, but usually only if it's relatively full or on the way out.
State of the operating system and the programs plays a part too.

You can easily have a system that wipes the floor on paper, but performs relatively badly..

[mkau]

All three of those affect the speed. The faster your hard drive, the quicker data is moved into RAM... if there's more RAM, more data from the hard drive can be stored on it... if your processor is quicker it will access the data in RAM.