PC boot-up speed vs processor type

[greenep]

Which will boot a PC faster - a dual or a quad processor (assuming same clock speeds and cache sizes)? Does it make any difference to the boot-up process?

 

[Raidur]

Probably no difference. That relys mostly on hard drive speed.

 

[saaiello]

if you want fast boot time you might want to look into an SSD

 

[masterjaw]

^ Agree with the above statements. No. of cores don't have that much influence with the boot process as it basically loads up data from the HDD. A HDD/SSD with fast read times would definitely make a difference.

 

[blackhawk1928]

The Access time of your storage device is what almost directly affects the boot speed of an operating system.

 

[warmon6]

agree.

unless you got a very slow single core cpu or to little of ram, the Storage drive will always be the limiting factor on OS boot up time.

 

[blackhawk1928]

Storage Device is the most limiting factor and bottleneck of any system (Period).

 

[das_stig]

Current processors, totally irrelevant, i7-720QM @ 1.6Ghz boots just as quick as Q6600 @ 3.3Ghz.

Storage device and RAM speed make more of an impact.

 

[warmon6]

Storage Device is the most limiting factor and bottleneck of any system (Period).

What you saying?

If you have a only, oh lets said 1GB or somehow less ram on a 64bit OS, the fastest ssd and HDD will be bottlenecked by the system memory.

I recently upgraded a family friends computer ram recently due to booting up into windows was taking an over an half an hour. Yes half an hour and sometimes longer! Went from 512MB of ram and to 2GB of ram, the Os was loaded up under a minute.


So, the storage drive is not the most limiting factor but it's a common one.

 

[blackhawk1928]

^Sorry, i should have explained the most common for reasonable PC's, if you have ancient PC, yes it is a problem, but in modern day rigs of most people the storage device is the limiter. I apoligize for not stating "most" systems, not all.

 

[mrmazo]

In my case, my old system ( XP2100+ Compaq ) definately benefitted from installing a better hard drive and more memory. But, the biggest gains were made ( and this may seem basic ) was to prevent unnessicary programs from loading at startup. My system is also on a wireless home network and many programs go out to the internet to look for updates causing further system confusion. The problem was, many of those programs would load before the wireless network was connected, causing all sorts of " unable to connect " messages and very slow boot times, Yahoo Messanger being the biggest culprit. I was able to recognise about 6 or so programs that weren't needed at startup. What once took over 10 minutes to boot is now less than three minutes.

 

[warmon6]

^Sorry, i should have explained the most common for reasonable PC's, if you have ancient PC, yes it is a problem, but in modern day rigs of most people the storage device is the limiter. I apoligize for not stating "most" systems, not all.

Ah, much better. i do agree that common system wont have this problem for a while.

 

[Mousemonkey]

What you saying?

If you have a only, oh lets said 1GB or somehow less ram on a 64bit OS, the fastest ssd and HDD will be bottlenecked by the system memory.

I recently upgraded a family friends computer ram recently due to booting up into windows was taking an over an half an hour. Yes half an hour and sometimes longer! Went from 512MB of ram and to 2GB of ram, the Os was loaded up under a minute.


So, the storage drive is not the most limiting factor but it's a common one.

:lol: I tried that a couple of weeks back to see whether W7 could run on 256MB of RAM (I was bored that day), 1 hour 12min from entering password to a desktop with all my icons.

 

[warmon6]

:lol: I tried that a couple of weeks back to see whether W7 could run on 256MB of RAM (I was bored that day), 1 hour 12min from entering password to a desktop with all my icons.

:lol:

 

[astrodudepsu]

:lol: I tried that a couple of weeks back to see whether W7 could run on 256MB of RAM (I was bored that day), 1 hour 12min from entering password to a desktop with all my icons.

That's taking bored to a whole new level. Good info to know though.

 

[Mousemonkey]

That's taking bored to a whole new level. Good info to know though.

:lol: Things you have to do when you have time on your hands and a fridge full of beer.

 

[greenep]

Which will boot a PC faster - a dual or a quad processor (assuming same clock speeds and cache sizes)? Does it make any difference to the boot-up process?

Thanks for all the comments. I suspected the HDD and RAM bottlenecks would dominate. The issue raised by mrmazo about network access during boot-up is something I have been suspicious about, too. I'm going to disconnect my network and see if it makes a difference in boot speed.

By the way, my system is a ECS motherboard with Core 2 Duo 7300 and 2G of RAM. I'm trying to decide between a faster duo (such as the 8500) or a slower quad for the same price. I'm not a gamer, so I probably don't really need a quad.

 

[warmon6]

Thanks for all the comments. I suspected the HDD and RAM bottlenecks would dominate. The issue raised by mrmazo about network access during boot-up is something I have been suspicious about, too. I'm going to disconnect my network and see if it makes a difference in boot speed.

By the way, my system is a ECS motherboard with Core 2 Duo 7300 and 2G of RAM. I'm trying to decide between a faster duo (such as the 8500) or a slower quad for the same price. I'm not a gamer, so I probably don't really need a quad.

Well depending on what your doing, i think your C2D e7300 is just fine.

What os and Os bit do you use? If it's 32 bit xp, vista, or 7 then 2 GB of ram is fine. it's you're HDD most likely slowing you down.

If it 64 bit vista, or 7 then you should grab 2 more Gbs of ram. making it 4 GB of ram.

 

[warmon6]

:lol: Things you have to do when you have time on your hands and a fridge full of beer.

[:studiocjf] [:thegreatgrapeape:3]

Lots of liquids......

 

[greenep]

Here is a potential helper for faster booting. The new HDDBoost from Silverstone lets you add a SSD as a cache for your HDD. It is very new (last week!) so there are no reviews or tests yet. If you could force it to hold the boot code, it could be very fast! By the way - any idea how big the boot code is (for an XP system)?

 

[blackhawk1928]

If you can use an SSD for a HDD cache, why wouldn't you just install your OS on it?...and if you are talking about a small couple meg SSD, then isn't that what an HDD cache already is?

 

[Bluescreendeath]

Motherboard type is also important. My motherboard takes about 15 seconds before it gets into the post screen, then my windows7 OS itself boots in under 10 seconds with my SSD.

 

[greenep]

If you can use an SSD for a HDD cache, why wouldn't you just install your OS on it?...and if you are talking about a small couple meg SSD, then isn't that what an HDD cache already is?

HDD cache is RAM, so you lose the contents when power is removed. SSD is non-volatile FLASH, so the contents stay put. That's why it could decrease boot time. You would need to "protect" the boot code area from being over-written after initial load.

 

[BigEasyOne]

i know this thread is most likely dead but there are more ways to boot faster maybe even the fastest without investing in an ssd... provided that faster boot times is the reason for going to an ssd. there are solid state embedded boot-able usb drive modules that attach to the motherboard usb bus. these modules hold the os and boot code/cashe in non-volatile memory. check it for yourself here http://www.memorydepot.com/ssd_diskonmodule_usb.asp. it is exactly what you are looking for. if you want to boot fast don't pay for more ssd than you need for your purpose. many only look for fast boot times, fast storage is another topic all together. do you really need faster storage?

 

[no1spank]

i know this thread is most likely dead but there are more ways to boot faster maybe even the fastest without investing in an ssd... provided that faster boot times is the reason for going to an ssd. there are solid state embedded boot-able usb drive modules that attach to the motherboard usb bus. these modules hold the os and boot code/cashe in non-volatile memory. check it for yourself here http://www.memorydepot.com/ssd_diskonmodule_usb.asp. it is exactly what you are looking for. if you want to boot fast don't pay for more ssd than you need for your purpose. many only look for fast boot times, fast storage is another topic all together. do you really need faster storage?

You could place the page file on a second drive or on a usb as long as you have the minimum size on the primary drive when going usb route.