UNIT 2 M3 and d2 v2

M3/D2: George Smith-Moore

M3: Evaluate the performance of a computer system.D2: Explain and justify improvements that could be made to a computer system.When evaluating the performance of a computer system, the most basic thing to do is to check the scoring system provided by Microsoft Windows. The scoring system is a guideline of how effectively each piece of hardware will run the OS, it ranges from 1.0 to 7.9, there is a set criteria for the 7.9 scoring, and anything above this would still only receive the 7.9 rating. The rating is based on how to run windows smoothly. Of course the scoring system is based on the lowest score, a lower than 7.9 score does not mean a sub-par experience. The scoring system also previews how durable the system is when put under strain. Below I have attached a picture of the scoring system.

*The extract below was taken from Wikipedia

‘Computer performance can be measured by comparing several results, these are:

Short response time for a given piece of work

High throughput (rate of processing work)

Low utilization of computing resource(s)

High availability of the computing system or application (yet as this is not a commercial server, this cannot be measured)

Fast (or highly compact) data compression and decompression

High bandwidth

Short data transmission time’


So, when testing the system, I have looked at what is considered an acceptable time. This is shown in the test table below, below that are the pictures which illustrate my claims.

TEST 1 (Image taken from the internet, as I could not take the image myself, yet the recorded times were roughly 1 minute from a cold start).


TEST 2 These 2 images show the boot up time to load this game, Payday 2.


TEST 3 unfortunately, I could not take screenshots of the CPU/RAM usage whilst in the game as it was in full screen and I could not change it. This is also true for the Benchmark results, due to the nature of the game and the fact that it was in full screen, I could not show evidence of the benchmark, yet the results show on the lowest of settings, a below par FPS.

TEST 4 this image shows the time it took to compress a large file into a zipped folder.


TEST 6 this shows the time it took to copy a large folder from one location to another.

Above I had used the resource manager, but another way to measure the computers performance is through the windows task manager. By looking at the task manager (as shown below), this was taken during the idle period, the RAM usage is quite high and so an increase could be considered, although there are some background applications/ processes running, changing these would free up both RAM space and CPU processing power.


To improve the computers performance, an upgrade to windows 8.1 (or wait until windows 10 is to be released), or remove some bloatware (with a possible clean install of windows). In the way of software, this would speed up the performance of the computer greatly, yet as more of the software gets put back onto the system, the computer would become slower over time. So in terms of software, an OS upgrade would improve boot speed, as with windows 8, the kernel fuses the hibernate modes with shutdown, allowing for a much faster boot. Also on lower end machines where resource use is critical, windows 8 is better as it uses less in comparison to windows 7. I can recommend removing unwanted software, yet this is not an ‘upgrade’ of sorts.

When looking at the hardware aspect, it can be broken down into the different parts for upgrades.

CPU: this is the first version of the i7 series, if you notice, it is still the highest scoring factor on the windows score index. It is roughly as powerful as the newest i5 series chips. Yet there are a few reasons for upgrading, these being that the CPU is now quite old and so would not work as well as before (even though it does quite well in the test (above)). The windows score index does not take wear and tear into consideration. Another reason to upgrade is for compatibility, to use a newer motherboard (which would have the newer USB format, and the newer PCIe standard) you must have a compatible chip, so to use the newer graphics processors, a newer motherboard would be needed. Also there is the upgrade to a CPU that is able to be overclocked.

CPU COOLER/FANS: This could be upgraded to a better model in order to better cool the CPU, this would allow overclocking, which would improve the speed of the CPU and allow processing to be done with much greater speed.


MOTHERBOARD: As stated above, the real reason for upgrading this is for the newer standard parts which would inherently improve performance, take the PCIe formats into consideration, PCIe x16 2.0 has a maximum speed of 8GB/s whereas PCIe x16 3.0 has a max speed for 16GB/s. Also over time the motherboard may have become damaged and so would not work as efficiently, for instance if one of the lanes becomes damages, then the processed information would travel along another lane, taking a longer route and putting more strain on the other routes and so shortening their lifespan.

RAM: Although the RAM is of the newest standard, it is by far not the fastest standard as DDR3 RAM can be 2100MHz whereas this RAM is 1600MHz. So although this is a single reason, another is that Motherboards have four slots, and so buying a larger single stick of RAM not only frees up space for more RAM but also is more efficient as the more RAM modules, the (albeit very slightly) slower they become. RAM can be overclocked if the correct one is bought. More RAM would ease the strain on the RAM already in place (as shown in the images above) and would allow greater functionality.

STORAGE: When writing to the HDD, although it is connected via the SATA cable, the HDD rpm also determines the speed. So an upgrade to either a faster HDD, a standalone SSD or even a PCIe connected SSD. This would greatly improve speed to the storage medium and so would increase the speed in which files can be accessed, and moved.

OPTICAL DRIVE: although this was not tested, when writing or reading media from a disk, the optical drive speed determines the computers functionality. So by improving this from a (for instance) x8 read/write to an x24 read/write you have a theoretical tripling of speed.

GPU: when looking at the speed of the GPU, you look towards the benchmarks for the game that I tested (ROME 2). It is obvious that the GPU is the bottleneck, as even though it scores relatively high on the windows scale, this is to run the windows GUI, not to play games. Considering games have taken massive leaps in recent years, it only more so dwarfs the power of the card. Below I have placed a comparison chart to illustrate my point, it is the weakest of the pack, and all of these cards are extremely outdated. On the lowest of settings this game received an almost unplayable 26.6FPS, yet when actually playing the game, in areas that were not GPU intensive, it lowered to as little as 16 FPS, this shows the reason to upgrade this card, just to improve the functionality of the computer.


Technology

UNIT 2 M3 and d2 v2