Posted by Kromey at 7:14pm Sep 2 '11Lots of things can be CPU-bound: rendering a 3D scene, playing the latest 3D game, etc.
Other things are usually disk-bound: decompressing a large file, or copying a large file.
But SSDs really aren't all that much faster than HDDs. And you'll pay a huge premium for that marginal improvement.
I would go with a solid, fast CPU and a 7200rpm SATA HDD, or maybe even bump up to a 10,000rpm SATA HDD, if you can spare the change -- and if you're torn between a HDD and a SSD, you can likely spare the change -- and you really want a super fast hard drive.
Ultimately, I notice more improvement overall from a faster CPU than I do from a faster HDD, probably because even disk-bound tasks rely a lot upon the CPU to get done, and you also have to remember that in any modern operating system your OS is scheduling tons of different tasks for the CPU, even when "idle". And if you're opening and closing files frequently, a disk with a larger cache will get you more bang for your buck, as will simply adding more RAM (even Windows these days caches frequently- and recently-used files in unused RAM).
Other things are usually disk-bound: decompressing a large file, or copying a large file.
But SSDs really aren't all that much faster than HDDs. And you'll pay a huge premium for that marginal improvement.
I would go with a solid, fast CPU and a 7200rpm SATA HDD, or maybe even bump up to a 10,000rpm SATA HDD, if you can spare the change -- and if you're torn between a HDD and a SSD, you can likely spare the change -- and you really want a super fast hard drive.
Ultimately, I notice more improvement overall from a faster CPU than I do from a faster HDD, probably because even disk-bound tasks rely a lot upon the CPU to get done, and you also have to remember that in any modern operating system your OS is scheduling tons of different tasks for the CPU, even when "idle". And if you're opening and closing files frequently, a disk with a larger cache will get you more bang for your buck, as will simply adding more RAM (even Windows these days caches frequently- and recently-used files in unused RAM).
Depends - Kromey