Wednesday, May 7, 2008

MEMORY AND APPLICATIONS


Just like storage, memory is often one of the major components overlooked in a computer - due to higher costs - most especially in notebooks. When can users say they are comfortable with how fast and smooth their computers run considering the amount of memory they're installed with? The answer will depend on the type of workload users demands from their notebooks. Generally, the more the memory, the better - and it has never hurt anyone, except when it comes to expenditures and the accounting books. The more memory a notebook is installed with, the faster and smoother more complex applications can run, and more documents can be loaded all in a single time. A fast processor will need an ample amount of memory in order for users to realize the full benefits of it. If a notebook has only an adequate amount of memory, the operating system is forced to rely on something called virtual memory where it will treat a portion of the much slower hard disk as part of the system memory. The operating system will swap required data back and forth between the hard disk and the memory, leading to slowdown in processing time. What may take one minute to accomplish may in fact, take somewhere from five to twenty minutes depending on the nature of the program.
For common office-related tasks, meeting today's basic requirement of having 512MB of memory will be adequate to have a smooth-running system while multitasking. For users with more demanding tasks like graphic and audio-video related work, they will need 1GB or more of memory in order to work efficiently.
Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows Vista, is one that has tremendously high requirements that demand at least 1GB of system memory just for the operating system. Vista will run with a lower amount of memory, but given that organizations will need to run other applications than just this, this is obviously not enough and a scenario where to much time will be wasted waiting will be encountered by users of under-spec'd notebooks. If Vista is planned to be implemented in every system used by an organization, it is recommended that notebooks be equipped with more than 1GB of system memory (perhaps 2GB) in order for users to fully appreciate the new capabilities of the operating system.

GRAPHIC POWER


The majority of notebook today are powered by the leading graphics chipset maker in the world - and that's Intel. This comes in the form of their integrated graphics accelerator, notably the GMA chipset. Such an integrated graphic solution means that basic 2D and 3D graphics requirements are met. This also means that since the graphic chipset is not meant for more demanding use, notebooks can benefit from their energy-saving design - but this will depend on the design and implementation of the graphics chipset. Notebooks with such graphic subsystems can perform adequately in the office as they are capable of rendering videos for presentations, delivering the necessary graphics output to a projector or larger display, and their 2D and 3D rendering capabilities for presentation effect is adequate.

If users need more from the graphic subsystem, they can also look to other key players in the 3D arena. ATI and NVIDIA are among the prominent ones in this field, providing GPUs designed for the mobile workhorse. These are designed to be energy-efficient, yet packing enough punch to give notebook an extra boost in power with respect to graphics solutions. If high definition content is necessary to impress in presentations, then a notebook with a GPU capable of taking the load off the CPU when it comes to rendering content is most desirable.
Notebooks with mobile workstation GPUs are necessary in special scenarios in which users rely on 3D graphics for their work. These include work related to CAD and CAM, engineering and designing, and 3D graphics and animation.
 

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