Hands on: Time for giving

As the end of the year approaches, it’s an opportune time to reflect on your hardware configuration and drop a few hints in the direction of anyone who might treat you at Christmas.

Regular readers of the Hardware and Performance columns know that, while I enjoy testing the latest kit, I also like to tweak and upgrade existing systems to get the maximum bang for the buck.

This year, more than ever, I’ve been selectively upgrading components rather than replacing and rebuilding from scratch, and discovered some serious improvements without spending a fortune or retiring a PC.

Over an extended period, some have worked much better than others, so in this Hardware column I’m going to share the highlights of those parts or tweaks that have proven particularly effective over the past year.

Memory
Memory remains the gift that keeps on giving. As new versions of Windows arrive and we spend more time using multimedia applications, Ram continues to be a valuable resource. Vista has proven to be a hungry fella and whatever Microsoft claims as its minimum system requirements, there are significant benefits to feeding it 2GB of Ram, rather than just 1GB.

Vista’s Readyboost, which uses Flash memory to accelerate some tasks, proved to be no substitute for real Ram though, and in fact I only measured a positive impact on systems with less than 1GB. Indeed, I found Readyboost had little, if any, impact on well-specified systems.

So the bottom line is that if you’re unhappy with your PC’s performance and don’t mind opening the case,
then make Ram a priority. Enter your motherboard manufacturer and model into a searchable database
like the Memory Advisor at www.crucial.com/uk to find out what Ram will work in your system.

But how far should you go? Limitations with 32-bit operating systems mean PCs fitted with 4GB
of Ram will only allow you to use about three quarters of it. Many motherboards are also incapable of handling this much Ram. So the safe maximum for most of us will be 2GB, but if you fancy making the next step, first ensure your motherboard and chipset are capable, then look into a 64-bit operating system which will address it all. See this month’s Performance column for more details.

Networking
2007 was the year I went Gigabit Ethernet. Most of my PCs already featured gigabit network adapters, so it was just a case of buying one of the increasingly affordable gigabit switches ­ in the end I went for a Netgear GS108, although I already wish I’d gone for 16 rather than eight ports.

Decent network performance requires more than just gigabit adapters and a switch though. You’ll need decent-quality cabling and you should also realise that not all network adapters are created equal. For the best performance, you may need to fit separate, higher-specified network adapters, and you may also need to tweak the driver settings.

Like all networking, you’ll also need a reality check. Gigabit may be rated at 10 times the speed of bog-standard 100Mbits/sec networking, but you’re unlikely to get anywhere near that in practice. Various overheads and traffic all take their toll, but it should still be noticeably quicker.

Previously, I rarely managed to get more than 40Mbits/sec out of my 100Mbits/sec Lan, and now I’m lucky to get more than 190Mbits/sec out of my gigabit Lan. But that’s still almost five times faster, which makes a huge difference if you regularly transfer files between PCs, stream media content or work on data stored on a server. It’s a noticeable and worthwhile upgrade.