Seeking help on upgrading to solve "sluggish" computer.

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blackcurrant

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Sep 28, 2013
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10,510
So i'm looking to upgrade my setup to hopefully solve some issues that i'm currently suffering from with my current. Unfortunately my computer isn't exactly excellent at multi-tasking and quickly becomes clogged up so to speak when multi tasking even small amounts of programs. An example is; Playing a video game whilst in the back ground my browser (Torch) is using the web with multiple flash players in use (Youtube/Twitch etc). Sometimes it even struggles with flash players if i'm using more than 4~. Or editing in Photoshop + flash players in the background it tends to choke.

So that leads me to wonder if any of my hardware is causing this issue and whether or not you guys could perhaps point me in the direction of the cause or perhaps a solution. I'll note my setup below so you can perhaps help me out :)



  • Intel Core i5 4570 3.20GHz Socket 1150 6MB Cache (Default Cooler)
    Asus H81M-A Socket 1150 DVI HDMI 8-Channel HD Audio uATX Motherboard
    GIGABYTE R9 270X 2048 MB GDDR5 OC PCI-E 3.0 256 bit
    Corsair Vengeance Pro 8GB 2x4GB DDR3 2400MHz
    240GB SSD + 500GB HDD

I'm aware my motherboard does not support my ram running at 2400MHz, would this cause an issue? Usually i reformat each month out of habit not in regards to this issue but the problem still persists even after reformatting each time. Which, if any piece of hardware needs to be switched, is there a cost effective immediate "noticeable" upgrade?
 
Solution
synphul
The most effective thing you can probably do is add more ram. Photoshop is ram hungry, flash can be too. Especially if you're running a game at the same time. There are times my system uses 5-6gb of ram with just a couple flash things open, several instances of chrome and misc other programs. Nothing heavy like photoshop. Once ram is gone it accesses the hard drive for the swap file and it drags the whole works to a crawl. Mulititasking is just as dependent on ram as it is cpu. A ht enabled i7 would also help, or a xeon 1231v3 but the ht won't solve the low ram issue for what you're trying to do.

Check your ram use when things slow down in task manager. I'm betting you're close to max usage, transferring one set of data out of ram to...
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synphul

synphul

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Mar 11, 2011
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The most effective thing you can probably do is add more ram. Photoshop is ram hungry, flash can be too. Especially if you're running a game at the same time. There are times my system uses 5-6gb of ram with just a couple flash things open, several instances of chrome and misc other programs. Nothing heavy like photoshop. Once ram is gone it accesses the hard drive for the swap file and it drags the whole works to a crawl. Mulititasking is just as dependent on ram as it is cpu. A ht enabled i7 would also help, or a xeon 1231v3 but the ht won't solve the low ram issue for what you're trying to do.

Check your ram use when things slow down in task manager. I'm betting you're close to max usage, transferring one set of data out of ram to make for another, then back again because your ram can't hold all the information can hurt performance.
 
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Solution
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blackcurrant

Honorable
Sep 28, 2013
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10,510


Completely overlooked the potential for it to be lack of ram, and you are indeed correct. I incorrectly assumed the compatibility with my high speed ram & motherboard was causing the issue, opened up the one most program i have an issue with when it comes to ram which is vmware and indeed it's maxing out. Even with light usage i.e one flash player open slightly "Idle" so to speak i'm at 5.6/7.9(8GB). Thanks for the heads up :)
 
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synphul

synphul

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Mar 11, 2011
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Glad it helped you out. I don't run vmware but running photoshop with browsers open or ps with illustrator and bridge I've seen it easily hit 15gb usage of 16gb. Before adding more ram it would get so slow I'd pretty much have to run one program at a time even restricting memory usage within the programs.
 
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