Windows 7 Performance

I have a Q6600 (quad core...I know it's old), 8 GB of RAM, 64-bit Windows 7, Office 2013, 7200 rpm hard drive and Geforce 710 1 GB)..when I run a certain Word document with lots of text and formatting....it's not that snappy

e.g., when I press enter multiple times, it's not fast and it's choppy

so i ran the same doc on my work PC (i7 3.40 ghz, 4 gb of RAM, 32-bit Windows 8, Office 2010, integrated graphics intel 4000, 7200 rpm hard drive), it's so fast and snappy

actually, windows 7 in general runs a bit smoother and snappier than my machine

Why is that? the i7 alone makes that much of a difference? I mean, it's just Windows and Office????

iko22 said:

Hello, and welcome to the Forums

What SATA connection do you have to your HDD? There can be a difference between SATA II and SATA III even for same 7200rpm HDD.

Also something else to look for is Hybrid SSHD are faster than ordinary HDD.

i really dont remember...Intel-Desktop-Board-DG33TL...pretty sure it's just SATA II

my work PC is also just HDD , not hybrid (it'sthis one: WD Blue 500GB Desktop Hard Disk Drive - 7200 RPM SATA 6 Gb/s 16MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD5000AAKX - Newegg.com)

well, my work PC looks to be a fresh install....maybe that's it

or maybe my anti-virus is causing it to bog down (AVAST)....cpu usage does jump around to like 20-30% ish for a bit when running the heavy Word doc

Well SATA II is 300 GB/s and SATAIII is 600 GB/s. So, if your home motherboard has SATA II and your work computer has SATA III then that would explain why you notice a difference.

Also disk fragmentation could be another cause. When did you last run a disk defrag?

Hope that helps.

iko22 said:

Well SATA II is 300 GB/s and SATAIII is 600 GB/s. So, if your home motherboard has SATA II and your work computer has SATA III then that would explain why you notice a difference.

Also disk fragmentation could be another cause. When did you last run a disk defrag?

Hope that helps.

weekly...there's no fragmentation

i know there's a big speed difference between SATA II and III, but wouldn't that impact more the transfer of large files? i mean, the word doc is 80kb

I initially thought it was GPU related so I bought that low-end geforce card, and it did help a little big (before I was typing and the text wouldn't even show up till like a couple fo seconds later). so i thought it was fixed, but then now I see my work PC, which in a lot of respects, is slower than my PC so I was surprised.

i mean, i7 and sata 3 is really the difference here? i can seee that making a difference for like photoshop or games.....but anyway...perhaps cause my work PC is a fresh install (I havent done so in 10 yrs fortunately).

1) We can discount disk fragmentation then.

2) I noticed a difference when I went from a SATA II disk to a SATA III disk, both used on a SATA III motherboard. Affects Computer Startup times, Windows Explorer search times, etc.

3) Aero Glass that is on Windows Vista and Windows 7 demands a higher performance graphics card for the Windows effects to work properly.

4) Have a look at the benchmark results Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 vs Intel Core i7 3770K. The Q6600 was a breakthrough in getting four cores onto one die, but today on performance and power consumption, it is easily beaten. Even a Core i5 would be faster in single task execution.

iko22 said:

1) We can discount disk fragmentation then.

2) I noticed a difference when I went from a SATA II disk to a SATA III disk, both used on a SATA III motherboard. Affects Computer Startup times, Windows Explorer search times, etc.

3) Aero Glass that is on Windows Vista and Windows 7 demands a higher performance graphics card for the Windows effects to work properly.

4) Have a look at the benchmark results Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 vs Intel Core i7 3770K. The Q6600 was a breakthrough in getting four cores onto one die, but today on performance and power consumption, it is easily beaten. Even a Core i5 would be faster in single task execution.

to add confusion, sometimes I feel, in general, my work PC performs a bit smoother better than my i5 Surface Book (the original generation).

anyway....i guess its sata and cpu

Your computer has enough RAM for a quad core machine. But there are perceivable bottlenecks, and these can be down to SATA, CPU and RAM or GPU. When considering CPU, it is not just the number of cores (although that does help) it is also core clock speed, memory clock speed, and technologies integrated on CPU. For instance the i5/i7 also have SSE 4.1 and SSE 4.2 integrated on chip. These integrated instruction sets can also explain perceived speed differences.

iko22 said:

Your computer has enough RAM for a quad core machine. But there are perceivable bottlenecks, and these can be down to SATA, CPU and RAM or GPU. When considering CPU, it is not just the number of cores (although that does help) it is also core clock speed, memory clock speed, and technologies integrated on CPU. For instance the i5/i7 also have SSE 4.1 and SSE 4.2 integrated on chip. These integrated instruction sets can also explain perceived speed differences.

does windows experience index have any weight?

cpu 7.1
ram 7.1
graphics 5.9
disk 6.6 or something (dont remember this number exactly)

...i mean, my PC could play some 3d games (with low fps etc)...cant imagine it cant run word and windows 100% smoothly.

windows experience index was intended to allow users see where bottlenecks appear in their system by use of this benchmark. Trouble is, the wei benchmark does not discriminiate between single task and multitasking. I suspect your higher score is due to the high multitasking capability of the Q6600.

If it helps my windows 7 dual core computer has a wei of 5.2 (primary disk drive, 7200 rpm).