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Originally Posted by faint545
so, you're saying is that rather than having one component determine the speed of the PC, it's a collaboration of all components, right?.. what confused me was.. if a computer was to be as fast as it's slowest part, then that single part would be the defining factor in just how fast it is. so then any other part wouldn't be able to reach its full potential, even if what you are doing was in it's favor.
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Saying a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link is either brilliant, or absurdly simple.
That is to say it all "depends"... It depends on what you do, how you use the system. That's, in a sense, is the weakest link. If you have a powerful box, but only do email or write letters, it doesn't really matter. It's the same with the chain if you don't use the section of chain that has the weak link in it.
OK, my box, for example, has only a single dual core, even when I'm maxing out the CPUs, like rendering a movie, the hard drive light only blinks. I imagine (and hope) that a dual quad core can keep the hard drive(s) a lot busier than that.
That is a bottle neck I would love to have.
It all has to be taken into account: how fast individual components are and what you'll be using it for, not to mention if you even have software that can fully utilize 8 CPUs. Most of my software, again for example, handles only one. The only advantage I get is that I can run more "stuff" without slowing down (as much). You even have to factor in how well you can multi-task to utilize more than a couple of programs. And so on...
My fairly fast system is as only as fast as I can feed it, and I have a hard time (other than rendering movies, and the like) keeping mine "busy."