BleepingComputer.com: What's the bottle neck in computers these days?

I'm planning to build a new computer.

Like everybody else, i need the fastest computer a reasonable amount of money can buy. Sounds like the same old needs but...

I remember back in the 90's when the bottle neck was Hard Drives (size and speeds), and then it became the CPU's, and then it became the memory (size and speeds), and then the Internal Bus (size and speeds). (I remember playing the original King's Quest on my massive 20 Meg hard drive - yes: that's Megs and not Gigs.)

What is the bottle neck today? If i have the fastest and largest HD, Memory, CPU, Internal Bus, which is the slowest component?

(I would be using the computer for running complex algorithms and formatting of data contained in a very large database on the local machine. Some of the processes could run for a day or 2. No Gaming).

This post has been edited by BlueGazoo: 12 July 2010 - 10:06 PM

To name a few I can think of right quick.

The Internet connection can be the number one bottle-neck issue with todays streaming media. (several pieces of hardware play part in this issue)

The system BUS can still be bottle-necked if a device sends more data than it can possilby process.

Bruce.

I agree about the internet, but i'll be doing the heavy processing locally only.

So you say the BUS is the main bottle neck? I know it's a difficult answer and it always seems to "depend" on this or that, but...

If it is the Front Side BUS, what is the largest FSB i should get? And is anyone planning on producing a larger FSB in near future?

Here's an interesting article (if you have the time and bandwidth ...
I think this answers my questions with : get the fastest mofo possible... ?

as far as just the computer itself (not counting internet) I think it would vary depending on the computer and what components you use, and the setup. With my computer, Its the hard drives-Im using a RAID 1 array, which actually slows down hard drive speed (the reason for it is the redundancy, everythings backed up in case one drive fails) With the CPU being the next biggest bottleneck. With most store bought computers, often its the video card in desktops, and the CPU in laptops. Bus speed can be a bottleneck, especially with intel based CPUs (sorry intel fans, but your bus speed is rather slow though its better with the i series) While AMD CPUs have a much faster bus, so that isnt their bottleneck, but they arnt quite as fast either. . . so you gotta weigh the pros and cons and figure out exactly what you want to build the computer for.

Here are some things to focus on, on any computer, never skimp on the motherboard or PSU. they are the backbone, you want good quality, with lots of room to upgrade in the future. You can skimp on the other components and upgrade them later, but dont skimp on those 2.

If your into graphics intensive games like crysis or say Battlefield bad company 2, a decent 2.8+ ghz quad core, 4 gigs of ram, and high end video card(s) (dual GPU setup is very handy) are probably what your going to want to focus on. Especially the video cards, 4 gigs of ram is a must but you dont need to go to extravagent, a decent quad, AMD or intel, but definetly buy at least one high end video card if not to. If your more into games like WOW, a high end quad core, and at least 4 gigs of really fast memory, are probably more important, because they are more CPU intensive instead of graphics intensive. You will still likely need a decent vid card, but prolly only in the higher midrange cards.

If you just want a HTPC or home computer, dual core CPU, 4 gigs of ram and mid range video card should do you fine.

If your looking to do a lot of storage, like server, turning it into a DVR, etc. spend more money on the hard drives. with gaming and movie watching, a single 250 to 500 gig HD should be fine, but if your going to be storing and accessing a lot of data on your hard drive, getting multiple hard drives and putting them into RAID 0 or other raid formats that include striping-will greatly improve your search time. Spending the extra money on the 10,000 RPM or SSD drives would be a good option then to.

Thanks for all that!

(I forgot to mention that it wont be used for Gaming. So i don't need a wicked graphics card.)

Few more questions:

• How high can i go with the Ram before it becomes wasteful? Are there good programs out there that can test the amount of RAM a program uses (so i can do some benchmarking)?
  
• A high end SCSI is 10'000 RPM's. How fast is that compared to an SSD Drive? I know SSD's don't rotate, but what would their equivalent RPM be?
  
• Are SSD's reliable yet? If not, I was going to compensate by only doing the processing on it, but not actually store too much data on it.
  
• I would probably get a 2TB Drive (because i do need space for storage). Does having a larger drive (regardless if it is being used or not) slow the overall performance of the puter down? What is the ideal % balance for Used and Free space? It used to be "never have less than 20% free". Is this the same for these 2TB drives?

This post has been edited by BlueGazoo: 13 July 2010 - 12:57 PM