TECHNOLOGY

11 Quick Tips to Supercharge Your PC Build for Better Performance

Published

1 year ago

July 22, 2023

11 Quick Tips to Supercharge Your PC Build for Better Performance

How can you quickly boost your computer’s performance? Although improving your build can be complex, these tips can make supercharging your build much more straightforward.

1. Get a High-End CPU

A good central processing unit (CPU) can dramatically boost your frame rate while video editing or playing games with high-quality graphics. Even upgrading your current part can help significantly. Be mindful that you need to consider your motherboard when choosing one.

Think about getting a CPU with many cores and threads. Since they can significantly impact computer functions, having extra would be ideal. Basically, they make it easier to keep multiple things running simultaneously — essentially letting you do more at once with no drop in performance.

If you’re on a budget, look for a CPU with more threads. Multithreading allows for parallel processing, meaning your computer utilses system resources better. It makes the entire experience much smoother. Some apps even have multithreaded rendering optimisation for a better visual experience.

2. Improve Your Cable Management

Although many consider cable management a purely aesthetic choice, it can affect your computer’s functions. Too many cords can limit airflow, quickly heating the internal components. Since thermal throttling lowers performance to cool things down, you could end up with a slow computer even if you have the best parts.

While you could just use zip ties to hold everything together, the bundles of cords could still affect the flow of air. If you want a manageable — and more visually appealing — approach, you should try a ribbon cable. It’s a flat, wide multi-conductor cable with parallel strands that connects the motherboard to other internal components.

Since ribbon cables are somewhat delicate, they need meticulous tension control during the manufacturing process. Make sure yours are from a reputable seller with strict quality control because superior connections result in better builds.

3. Choose a Good Graphics Card

A quality graphics card can make a huge difference in your build. Essentially, it can help the CPU process visuals. The result is a clearer image with higher resolution — with no drop in performance.

4. Install a Liquid Cooling System

Keeping your computer cool can significantly boost its performance. The combination of dusty fan blades and graphic-intense games practically creates a space heater. An all-in-one cooler is an excellent choice if you want to lower the temp. It’s a pre-built system that moves liquid around your internal components to lower the temperature. Distilled water has a high thermal conductivity, meaning it’s great at carrying heat away.

Initial setup can be involved, but maintenance is super simple. Since everything functions in a contained environment, you don’t need to worry about dust buildup. Plus, you rarely need to change out the liquid.

A liquid cooling tube might not be flashy, but it’s a worthwhile tradeoff to significantly boost your computer’s performance. You can install colourful peripherals to compensate for the lack of RGB lighting.

5. Get More RAM

Random-access memory (RAM) is one of the most important parts to consider when increasing your computer’s functions. It’ll run much faster if you install extra RAM. It’s essentially temporary storage, so having more can decrease loading time and increase processing speeds.

Although many games say 8 GB meets their minimum requirements, you should aim higher. Typically, a mid-tier gaming computer needs at least 16 GB for smooth computing and quality graphics. You should shoot for 32 if you play a lot of first-person shooters or use visually demanding applications.

It’s a simple addition to your build that can drastically improve its performance. Plus, RAM is relatively affordable — especially if you wait for a sale. Although the actual cost varies depending on brand and size, you can often snag a good deal.

6. Set Updates to Automatic

Automatic updates can drastically boost your computer’s speed over time. They offer performance improvements and often come with new features or resource utilisation changes. These minor fixes help your hardware function better.

It’s far too easy to click the “Remind Me Later” option when a pop-up appears begging you to update — and then forget about it. Enabling automated updates as soon as you get your PC in order will help you stay on track.

7. Use an SSD

A solid-state drive (SSD) is typically more expensive than a hard-disk drive (HDD), but using it for at least some of your storage is worth it. It helps reduce your loading times and increases processing speeds.

If you’re on a budget and don’t want to splurge on storage, consider getting a smaller SSD. While having multiple terabytes would be ideal, you only need enough space to hold your essentials. You can boost your computer’s performance by installing your operating system and primary applications there — everything else goes on your HDD.

8. Get ESD Protection

Have you ever sat down to game only to find out your computer suddenly isn’t working correctly? Electrostatic discharge (ESD) is the most likely culprit. It’s every gamer’s enemy — one minor shock can quickly fry internal components.

It sometimes only causes slight damage, resulting in long-term operational issues and a reduced life span. You can increase your room’s humidity, get a rubber floor mat and use specific power strips to prevent ESD from affecting your computer.

While protecting your computer won’t directly increase its performance, it helps maintain each part’s capabilities. Your RAM and CPU are especially sensitive to ESD — which are critical for smooth gameplay and fast processing. Keeping them safe makes them more reliable and lets you get more use out of them.

9. Enable a Hardware-Accelerated GPU

Hardware-accelerated graphics processing unit (GPU) scheduling is a setting that dedicates certain CPU tasks to the GPU’s processor. It optimises a computer’s performance because it evens out the operational load on each part. You can enable it for individual apps if you have a recent graphics card and run Windows 10 or 11.

It’s great if your CPU consistently reaches 100% utilisation or is lower-end. It can make gameplay much more smooth and even dramatically lower latency. Consider enabling the setting after you have everything set up.

10. Choose the Right PSU

Your power supply unit (PSU) indirectly affects your computer functions if it doesn’t have enough wattage. Essentially, our parts need enough power to function properly and will work worse when they don’t have enough.

You can drastically boost processing speeds and improve visuals with a quality PSU. Ensure the part you choose exceeds the minimum power requirements of each component before installation. It’s a simple way to ensure you get the maximum performance out of each part.

11. Enable G-Sync

Turn on Nvidia G-sync if you have compatible hardware. It’s an option in your settings that ensures your monitor’s refresh rate aligns with the frame rate your graphics card gets. It makes gameplay look sleek and keeps visuals crisp.

Improve Your Computer

Usually, you’ll have to install new components to get the most out of your build. You can enable particular settings or change your internal layout to make it function better — you don’t need to splurge on the latest hardware to improve your computer.

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TECHNOLOGY

Next-gen chips, Amazon Q, and speedy S3

Published

10 months ago

December 1, 2023

Max

AWS re:Invent, which has been taking place from November 27 and runs to December 1, has had its usual plethora of announcements: a total of 21 at time of print.

Perhaps not surprisingly, given the huge potential impact of generative AI – ChatGPT officially turns one year old today – a lot of focus has been on the AI side for AWS’ announcements, including a major partnership inked with NVIDIA across infrastructure, software, and services.

Yet there has been plenty more announced at the Las Vegas jamboree besides. Here, CloudTech rounds up the best of the rest:

Next-generation chips

This was the other major AI-focused announcement at re:Invent: the launch of two new chips, AWS Graviton4 and AWS Trainium2, for training and running AI and machine learning (ML) models, among other customer workloads. Graviton4 shapes up against its predecessor with 30% better compute performance, 50% more cores and 75% more memory bandwidth, while Trainium2 delivers up to four times faster training than before and will be able to be deployed in EC2 UltraClusters of up to 100,000 chips.

The EC2 UltraClusters are designed to ‘deliver the highest performance, most energy efficient AI model training infrastructure in the cloud’, as AWS puts it. With it, customers will be able to train large language models in ‘a fraction of the time’, as well as double energy efficiency.

As ever, AWS offers customers who are already utilising these tools. Databricks, Epic and SAP are among the companies cited as using the new AWS-designed chips.

Zero-ETL integrations

AWS announced new Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL, Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon Relational Database Services (Amazon RDS) for MySQL integrations with Amazon Redshift, AWS’ cloud data warehouse. The zero-ETL integrations – eliminating the need to build ETL (extract, transform, load) data pipelines – make it easier to connect and analyse transactional data across various relational and non-relational databases in Amazon Redshift.

A simple example of how zero-ETL functions can be seen is in a hypothetical company which stores transactional data – time of transaction, items bought, where the transaction occurred – in a relational database, but use another analytics tool to analyse data in a non-relational database. To connect it all up, companies would previously have to construct ETL data pipelines which are a time and money sink.

The latest integrations “build on AWS’s zero-ETL foundation… so customers can quickly and easily connect all of their data, no matter where it lives,” the company said.

Amazon S3 Express One Zone

AWS announced the general availability of Amazon S3 Express One Zone, a new storage class purpose-built for customers’ most frequently-accessed data. Data access speed is up to 10 times faster and request costs up to 50% lower than standard S3. Companies can also opt to collocate their Amazon S3 Express One Zone data in the same availability zone as their compute resources.

Companies and partners who are using Amazon S3 Express One Zone include ChaosSearch, Cloudera, and Pinterest.

Amazon Q

A new product, and an interesting pivot, again with generative AI at its core. Amazon Q was announced as a ‘new type of generative AI-powered assistant’ which can be tailored to a customer’s business. “Customers can get fast, relevant answers to pressing questions, generate content, and take actions – all informed by a customer’s information repositories, code, and enterprise systems,” AWS added. The service also can assist companies building on AWS, as well as companies using AWS applications for business intelligence, contact centres, and supply chain management.

Customers cited as early adopters include Accenture, BMW and Wunderkind.

Want to learn more about cybersecurity and the cloud from industry leaders? Check out Cyber Security & Cloud Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.

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TECHNOLOGY

HCLTech and Cisco create collaborative hybrid workplaces

Published

11 months ago

November 29, 2023

Max

Digital comms specialist Cisco and global tech firm HCLTech have teamed up to launch Meeting-Rooms-as-a-Service (MRaaS).

Available on a subscription model, this solution modernises legacy meeting rooms and enables users to join meetings from any meeting solution provider using Webex devices.

The MRaaS solution helps enterprises simplify the design, implementation and maintenance of integrated meeting rooms, enabling seamless collaboration for their globally distributed hybrid workforces.

Rakshit Ghura, senior VP and Global head of digital workplace services, HCLTech, said: “MRaaS combines our consulting and managed services expertise with Cisco’s proficiency in Webex devices to change the way employees conceptualise, organise and interact in a collaborative environment for a modern hybrid work model.

“The common vision of our partnership is to elevate the collaboration experience at work and drive productivity through modern meeting rooms.”

Alexandra Zagury, VP of partner managed and as-a-Service Sales at Cisco, said: “Our partnership with HCLTech helps our clients transform their offices through cost-effective managed services that support the ongoing evolution of workspaces.

“As we reimagine the modern office, we are making it easier to support collaboration and productivity among workers, whether they are in the office or elsewhere.”

Cisco’s Webex collaboration devices harness the power of artificial intelligence to offer intuitive, seamless collaboration experiences, enabling meeting rooms with smart features such as meeting zones, intelligent people framing, optimised attendee audio and background noise removal, among others.

Tags: Cisco, collaboration, HCLTech, Hybrid, meetings

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TECHNOLOGY

Canonical releases low-touch private cloud MicroCloud

Published

11 months ago

November 28, 2023

Max

Canonical has announced the general availability of MicroCloud, a low-touch, open source cloud solution. MicroCloud is part of Canonical’s growing cloud infrastructure portfolio.

It is purpose-built for scalable clusters and edge deployments for all types of enterprises. It is designed with simplicity, security and automation in mind, minimising the time and effort to both deploy and maintain it. Conveniently, enterprise support for MicroCloud is offered as part of Canonical’s Ubuntu Pro subscription, with several support tiers available, and priced per node.

MicroClouds are optimised for repeatable and reliable remote deployments. A single command initiates the orchestration and clustering of various components with minimal involvement by the user, resulting in a fully functional cloud within minutes. This simplified deployment process significantly reduces the barrier to entry, putting a production-grade cloud at everyone’s fingertips.

Juan Manuel Ventura, head of architectures & technologies at Spindox, said: “Cloud computing is not only about technology, it’s the beating heart of any modern industrial transformation, driving agility and innovation. Our mission is to provide our customers with the most effective ways to innovate and bring value; having a complexity-free cloud infrastructure is one important piece of that puzzle. With MicroCloud, the focus shifts away from struggling with cloud operations to solving real business challenges” says

In addition to seamless deployment, MicroCloud prioritises security and ease of maintenance. All MicroCloud components are built with strict confinement for increased security, with over-the-air transactional updates that preserve data and roll back on errors automatically. Upgrades to newer versions are handled automatically and without downtime, with the mechanisms to hold or schedule them as needed.

With this approach, MicroCloud caters to both on-premise clouds but also edge deployments at remote locations, allowing organisations to use the same infrastructure primitives and services wherever they are needed. It is suitable for business-in-branch office locations or industrial use inside a factory, as well as distributed locations where the focus is on replicability and unattended operations.

Cedric Gegout, VP of product at Canonical, said: “As data becomes more distributed, the infrastructure has to follow. Cloud computing is now distributed, spanning across data centres, far and near edge computing appliances. MicroCloud is our answer to that.

“By packaging known infrastructure primitives in a portable and unattended way, we are delivering a simpler, more prescriptive cloud experience that makes zero-ops a reality for many Industries.“

MicroCloud’s lightweight architecture makes it usable on both commodity and high-end hardware, with several ways to further reduce its footprint depending on your workload needs. In addition to the standard Ubuntu Server or Desktop, MicroClouds can be run on Ubuntu Core – a lightweight OS optimised for the edge. With Ubuntu Core, MicroClouds are a perfect solution for far-edge locations with limited computing capabilities. Users can choose to run their workloads using Kubernetes or via system containers. System containers based on LXD behave similarly to traditional VMs but consume fewer resources while providing bare-metal performance.

Coupled with Canonical’s Ubuntu Pro + Support subscription, MicroCloud users can benefit from an enterprise-grade open source cloud solution that is fully supported and with better economics. An Ubuntu Pro subscription offers security maintenance for the broadest collection of open-source software available from a single vendor today. It covers over 30k packages with a consistent security maintenance commitment, and additional features such as kernel livepatch, systems management at scale, certified compliance and hardening profiles enabling easy adoption for enterprises. With per-node pricing and no hidden fees, customers can rest assured that their environment is secure and supported without the expensive price tag typically associated with cloud solutions.

Tags: automation, Canonical, MicroCloud, private cloud

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