[VampD]

So I'm wondering if my ideas follow the beliefs of the general consensus of the community around here. I'm under these impressions:

1. That a processor overclock ( whether that be change in multiplier or bus speed ) generally results in the largest increases in computer performance and that processors can be overclocked up to 60% for modern day systems with good cooling?

2. That a graphic card overclock is the next in line for increasing overall computer performance ( in games of course ) and that modern day cards clock speeds can usually only be increased up to 15% since they are already pushed hard and get hot fast

3. The next in line affecting computer performance would be the amount of ram ( more then 4 gigs being unreadable by 32 bit OS )

4. As anandtech proved in their article, the next in line affecting computer performance would be the tightening of ram timings or ram overclocking which results in a very little boost of usually less then 5%

Maybe the speed of the hard drive needs to be added somewhere in the list since it can play a certain bottleneck role in certain cases?

[b1gapl]

1. Yes, it is generally the most noticeable component, when overclocked, to see a good increase in performance. If you're lucky, and have excellent cooling along with great conditions, you can overclock a processor beyond 60%. I've gotten close to 100% on my E2140 on a daily basis, only limited by my motherboard's overclocking ability.

2. True in terms of gaming. You can increase clocks pass 15%, depending on the aftermarket cooling and the graphic card. Some cards are overclocking monsters, while others can't overclock for the life of it.

3. In terms of the type of programs you use. Such as editing and design, which are very RAM demanding. If you have more than 4GBs of memory, it makes sense to go 64bit.

4. Very little, in fact, not really noticeable in real world performance, but in benchmarking.

The hard drives in terms of the computer's performance for the most part, is the speed of loading programs.

[VampD]

Originally Posted by b1gapl

1. Yes, it is generally the most noticeable component, when overclocked, to see a good increase in performance. If you're lucky, and have excellent cooling along with great conditions, you can overclock a processor beyond 60%. I've gotten close to 100% on my E2140 on a daily basis, only limited by my motherboard's overclocking ability.

2. True in terms of gaming. You can increase clocks pass 15%, depending on the aftermarket cooling and the graphic card. Some cards are overclocking monsters, while others can't overclock for the life of it.

3. In terms of the type of programs you use. Such as editing and design, which are very RAM demanding. If you have more than 4GBs of memory, it makes sense to go 64bit.

4. Very little, in fact, not really noticeable in real world performance, but in benchmarking.

The hard drives in terms of the computer's performance for the most part, is the speed of loading programs.

hmmm but what about games with a lot of high resolution textures? I remember when I had an old 5400 rpm hard drive it struggled a lot with BF2 and had a lot of video hitching and I was told it was because of my slow hard drive when accessing a lot of the textures in that game.

Also does motherboard matter much? In the benchmarks I can remember motherboards only different about 5% in performance from eachother, but some had a lot more OCing potential/stability then the other.

[b1gapl]

Plain and simple, your hard drive was old and had a slower rpm. You can't overclock hard drives. You can only get a faster, more current hard drive. Or an SSD.

It's the motherboard's features and overclockability that matters. Regarding performance, not much, as most motherboards comparing the same chipset will perform similarly to each other.