What component upgrade would speed up Microsoft Outlook?

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Dougx1317

Dougx1317

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My friend is upset that his Microsoft Outlook email client is running slowly, and I'm trying to help him solve the issue. He is convinced that he needs a whole new computer, and I'm trying to design a build for him. What computer components affect the speed and performance of email programs like Outlook?

He runs a small business and has nearly 4000 emails in his inbox. He refuses to archive or delete any emails, since he refers back to old emails often. He often sends and receives emails with attachments that total 10MB+.

His current computer is a Dell Inspiron laptop with an i5 M460, 6GB of ram, and a recently upgraded MX100 500GB SSD. The new computer will be a desktop. What should I focus on during the new build? Would an i7 4790 and 8GB of ram make Outlook faster?
 
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weberdarren97

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Aug 10, 2015
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Wayfall is right, the speed of his internet connection will greatly affect the responsiveness of Microsoft Outlook. Also, the processor and RAM would be the two biggest factors, although the RAM would be the number one culprit here other than his internet connection (if it's slow)
 
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spdragoo

spdragoo

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Well, unfortunately that particular chip (i5-460M) is so old that it's hard to find benchmarks to use to compare it to even Ivy Bridge & Sandy Bridge versions, let alone Haswell or Skylake.

As for what will affect Outlook's speed, there are a number of things, but of varying importance. For example, while an Internet connection is a necessity, & while Outlook technically is "always connected" when running, the truth is that it's only really using the connection when actively sending/receiving messages. So as long as he has a "broadband" connection, he could even have an older 10/100-level Ethernet port & still have plenty of connectivity for his needs.

Same thing with the storage. An SSD will help with the initial startup speed for the application, but once it's running the only way it would help is if his actual Outlook data files are locally stored on it. If they're not stored on the SSD (i.e. stored on another internal drive, stored on an external drive, stored on a local file server, etc.), the SSD's speed will have little to no effect on loading the archived messages.

Probably the biggest factors will be RAM & CPU. With 6GB, he's already on a 64-bit OS, so adding more RAM will help. More importantly, unless he has a 3x2GB setup on that laptop to use triple-channel mode, he's missing out on his RAM being able to operate in the faster speed modes (dual-channel, triple-channel, etc.). Also, that particular i5 chip is limited to DDR3/1066MHz RAM, so having access to a PC with faster DDR3 (or better yet, DDR4) RAM will help speed things up.

Which also leaves the CPU. Like I said, it's hard to find benchmarks to compare; I hate to use CPUBoss, as they're not always reliable, but at least it does show the later Haswell 4430S apparently having 2-3 times the performance (http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i5-460M-vs-Intel-Core-i5-4430S). More importantly, though, per Intel's own references a Haswell i5 has twice the DMI performance of his chip (5 GT/s vs. 2.5 GT/s), with the newer Skylakes running even faster (8 GT/s):

http://ark.intel.com/products/50179
http://ark.intel.com/products/75036
http://ark.intel.com/products/88187

That being said, he could probably upgrade to a Haswell or Skylake i3 build & see a big performance boost. If you go Haswell, you're probably good with DDR3/1333 or 1600 RAM, while Skylake is probably good with DDR4/2133 or 2400 RAM; in either case, don't even bother with a discrete GPU (the integrated graphics will be fine).
 
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Dougx1317

Dougx1317

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The SSD is only about 25% filled. Are the emails from Outlook stored on the computer itself, or is it having to pull from the server every time he browses old emails?

I haven't tested the internet connection yet. He said it would take several minutes to successfully send an email, so would the internet really be that slow? He also said that the computer was barely usable while it was sending.

Do you think 8GB of dual channeled RAM would be enough if I build a new desktop, or would 16GB be worth the additional money? I planned on getting either a 4690 or 4790. Would hyper-threading help in this situation?
 
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weberdarren97

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If all he does is basic office tasks, then 8GB in dual channel will be enough... However, I always recommend getting as much memory as you can afford (until you hit the point of diminishing return).

There is this website you can go to here http://www.speedtest.net and it will automatically detect the nearest server and start an internet speed test to it. It will relay ping (the delay between when a packet is sent and when it is received), upload and download speed (measured in megabits per second, Mb/s). One bit is a single 1 or 0, it's 1/8 of a byte. One megabit is 1/8 of a megabyte. A good number would be at least 10Mb/s symmetrical speed (upload and download being the same or very close to it), but his ISP may provide asymmetrical speed in which case upload will be slower than download. Either way, the lower number should not be lower than about 8Mb/s. If it gives the result in Kb/s (one kilobit is 1/1024 of a megabit) then you have a problem with internet connectivity.
 
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Wayfall

Wayfall

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So to round up the best thing you can currently do Is get more RAM for your laptop.

Also check you are getting a decent internet connection with a low ping.

In the future you may want to think about upgrading the laptop for a better CPU maybe but its not a must right now.

Regards
 
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