3 ms·

What sort of tasks? FWIW, I had a similar configuration to yours (just an older MBP) and installing an SSD helped immensely. I can hit 200% CPU load and not ev

by rufo 16y ago

What sort of tasks? FWIW, I had a similar configuration to yours (just an older MBP) and installing an SSD helped immensely. I can hit 200% CPU load and not even realize it until the fans kick in…

burgerbrain 16y ago
What kind of application blocks on disk IO but nothing else for extended amounts of time? I'm having a hard time seeing how installing an SSD and maxing out your cores are terribly related otherwise. SSDs do a lot to reduce loadtimes, and thus make your computer seem much faster, but they do little for making your programs run full-speed-ahead constantly. Most every application out there blocks on network connections, user input, or just plain old throttles itself. For that matter, I can max out my cores just using a couple dozen instances of mplayer, playing several movies at once off of a usb removable harddrive...
- deckard 16y ago
  "What kind of application blocks on disk IO but nothing else for extended amounts of time? I'm having a hard time seeing how installing an SSD and maxing out your cores are terribly related otherwise" Virtual memory paging to/from disk. This is probably why the new MacBook Airs feel faster than the CPU+RAM specs suggest.
  - burgerbrain 16y ago
    That'll improve your loadtimes, but I'm having a really hard time seeing that as the reason why most people aren't maxing out their CPUs all the time. Unless something has gone terribly wrong, you should never be hitting your disk that much. During standard home computer operation, both the CPU and the disk are generally quite idle.
zemanel 16y ago
I know the subject is pretty much Apple's and oranges but i'm currently running: - Terminal with 2 tabs - firefox with 2 tabs - chrome with about 9 - gaim and skype - iTunes streaming soma.fm - Netbeans with an opened project - jEdit - Colloquy - Postgres instance and as soon as i booted Windows XP in VMware, well, took me a while to be able to reply to this post (after the vm settled). I also that you might be saying "d'oh" but i've had Gentoo running on this metal and a "similar" environment AND compiling stuff with -j4 doesn't freeze away my UI. My user experience with "OSX" is that it's, way more prone to unresponsiveness due to load, but hey, who cares :P clicks Time Machine
- rufo 16y ago
  Your typical workload sounds almost exactly the same to mine - right down to VMware temporarily killing OS X performance. Not that Anonymous Guy On HN is worth much, but get an SSD - it'll be the best upgrade you've ever purchased. (Or maybe I just needed to sidegrade to Linux. :)
  - gte910h 16y ago
    Do you have a suggestion on a good and large SSD? And what did you install it into?
    - rufo 16y ago
      The Intel SSDs are good; they top out at 160GB and they're not as fast as some of the newer drives - but their track record is nearly flawless. It's what I have, but I ordered one the minute it was posted on Newegg last year. Some of the newer Sandforce-based drives are supposed to be good, though you'll want to pick one from a reliable manufacturer and with a stable firmware. If you have a Mac, OWC[1] is a good choice, as I believe they have firmware that garbage-collects HFS+, which helps to keep the SSD as fast as possible. I also think OCZ is good, but check reviews to make sure people aren't having too many problems. You can also get a brackets that replaces your optical drive, and allows you to fit a 2.5" HDD. I have one in my 17" non-unibody MBP, and it's really the best of both worlds - I keep OS X, my working files and apps on the SSD, along with my main Windows XP web testing VM. My iTunes library, media, and games stay on the HDD, along with a Boot Camped copy of Windows 7 (though it's a pain to get the installer to run without an internal optical drive). I keep a cheap Samsung bus-powered DVD burner in my bag, but in reality I rarely need it. I think OWC sells a bracket for Macs, but if you can figure out exactly which bracket you need, a site called newmodeus.com sells them for almost every laptop ever made for considerably less. I really do believe my SSD is the best upgrade I've ever spent money on; no computer I use from now on will be without one. It's not so much that the computer is faster; it's more the feeling that the computer does not grind to a halt or slow down, no matter what's going on. (I may have compared my computer to the Terminator amongst friends once or twice… it just doesn't slow down.) 1: macsales.com
- 16y ago

by rufo 16y ago

What sort of tasks? FWIW, I had a similar configuration to yours (just an older MBP) and installing an SSD helped immensely. I can hit 200% CPU load and not even realize it until the fans kick in…

burgerbrain 16y ago

What kind of application blocks on disk IO but nothing else for extended amounts of time? I'm having a hard time seeing how installing an SSD and maxing out your cores are terribly related otherwise. SSDs do a lot to reduce loadtimes, and thus make your computer seem much faster, but they do little for making your programs run full-speed-ahead constantly. Most every application out there blocks on network connections, user input, or just plain old throttles itself. For that matter, I can max out my cores just using a couple dozen instances of mplayer, playing several movies at once off of a usb removable harddrive...

deckard 16y ago
"What kind of application blocks on disk IO but nothing else for extended amounts of time? I'm having a hard time seeing how installing an SSD and maxing out your cores are terribly related otherwise" Virtual memory paging to/from disk. This is probably why the new MacBook Airs feel faster than the CPU+RAM specs suggest.
- burgerbrain 16y ago
  That'll improve your loadtimes, but I'm having a really hard time seeing that as the reason why most people aren't maxing out their CPUs all the time. Unless something has gone terribly wrong, you should never be hitting your disk that much. During standard home computer operation, both the CPU and the disk are generally quite idle.

zemanel 16y ago

I know the subject is pretty much Apple's and oranges but i'm currently running: - Terminal with 2 tabs - firefox with 2 tabs - chrome with about 9 - gaim and skype - iTunes streaming soma.fm - Netbeans with an opened project - jEdit - Colloquy - Postgres instance and as soon as i booted Windows XP in VMware, well, took me a while to be able to reply to this post (after the vm settled). I also that you might be saying "d'oh" but i've had Gentoo running on this metal and a "similar" environment AND compiling stuff with -j4 doesn't freeze away my UI. My user experience with "OSX" is that it's, way more prone to unresponsiveness due to load, but hey, who cares :P clicks Time Machine

rufo 16y ago
Your typical workload sounds almost exactly the same to mine - right down to VMware temporarily killing OS X performance. Not that Anonymous Guy On HN is worth much, but get an SSD - it'll be the best upgrade you've ever purchased. (Or maybe I just needed to sidegrade to Linux. :)
- gte910h 16y ago
  Do you have a suggestion on a good and large SSD? And what did you install it into?
  - rufo 16y ago
    The Intel SSDs are good; they top out at 160GB and they're not as fast as some of the newer drives - but their track record is nearly flawless. It's what I have, but I ordered one the minute it was posted on Newegg last year. Some of the newer Sandforce-based drives are supposed to be good, though you'll want to pick one from a reliable manufacturer and with a stable firmware. If you have a Mac, OWC[1] is a good choice, as I believe they have firmware that garbage-collects HFS+, which helps to keep the SSD as fast as possible. I also think OCZ is good, but check reviews to make sure people aren't having too many problems. You can also get a brackets that replaces your optical drive, and allows you to fit a 2.5" HDD. I have one in my 17" non-unibody MBP, and it's really the best of both worlds - I keep OS X, my working files and apps on the SSD, along with my main Windows XP web testing VM. My iTunes library, media, and games stay on the HDD, along with a Boot Camped copy of Windows 7 (though it's a pain to get the installer to run without an internal optical drive). I keep a cheap Samsung bus-powered DVD burner in my bag, but in reality I rarely need it. I think OWC sells a bracket for Macs, but if you can figure out exactly which bracket you need, a site called newmodeus.com sells them for almost every laptop ever made for considerably less. I really do believe my SSD is the best upgrade I've ever spent money on; no computer I use from now on will be without one. It's not so much that the computer is faster; it's more the feeling that the computer does not grind to a halt or slow down, no matter what's going on. (I may have compared my computer to the Terminator amongst friends once or twice… it just doesn't slow down.) 1: macsales.com
16y ago