In my experience there are three main things you can do to speed up your P.C.
I'm talking physical things. Take the cover off, take parts out and put other parts in things.
1) RAM upgrade - this is the easiest one. RAM modules just slot in and most modern P.C.s make those slots easily accessible.
2) Hard drive upgrade (ROM) - I'll never forget the first time I swapped out my HDD for an SSD. The write speeds on a Solid State Drive are usually hundreds of times faster than a traditional spinning disk. The process is a bit more full-on than swapping out some RAM cards of course, because you need to clone everything on your old drive to your new one. There are plenty of user-friendly programs to help you do this though, so it's not really more technically complicated, just more time-consuming.
3) CPU upgrade - this is a major. You know how doctors don't know how to do brain transplants yet? Swapping out your computer's brain is not going to be easy either. Depending on the configuration of your motherboard, it may not even be possible without replacing the whole motherboard itself. That's basically a whole new computer, not an upgrade.
More RAM used to be my recommended quick fix - easy and effective. But last time I upgraded (from an 8GB configuration to 16GB) I was a little disappointed with the results. Yes the P.C. ran more smoothly, games worked more reliably and I experienced less crashes using resource-heavy video and audio editing programs, but in terms of speed? Hardly any difference. Certainly not the massive acceleration I gained from changing out my HDD for an SSD.
Turns out, maybe I just didn't go big enough...
The new range of Sport AT DDR4 RAM modules from Ballistix is all about power - especially when packaged in the 4X8GB configuration I was lucky enough to review.
That's right, in under 5 minutes I was able to install a whopping 32GB of RAM into my P.C. and it didn't know what had hit it.
Obviously you'll need a compatible motherboard with 4 RAM slots to accommodate an upgrade like this - these modules also run at the higher 1.35 voltage, although there are 1.2V versions available if that's all your existing rig can power. You can easily check for any compatibility issues here.
With the combination of the higher voltage and four RAM cards slotted in so tightly together, I was a bit worried there might be a heat issue but the new heat spreader design seems to sort all that. Those heat spreaders are also cosmetically matched to the latest ASUS TUF Gaming motherboards. I guess that's important for gamers who care about what the inside of their computer looks like. Personally, I just want it to work.
And the Ballistix Sport AT definitely works.
Unlike my last RAM double-up, this time the massive 32GB made an instant and noticeable difference to my boot time - reducing it by over 25%. Between antivirus programs, cloud syncing and auto-updates, boot times seem to be constantly under attack - so to slice more than a minute off mine was a breath of fresh air.
Not only do those resource-heavy games and editing programs now work without a single glitch or crash, they also load so much faster.
Even iTunes (yes, I know it may seem strange to use iTunes on a P.C., but I still find it the most straightforward way to organise my music catalogue)... even iTunes now opens almost instantly. I don't know why, but it's always taken ages to open in the decade-plus I've used it... not anymore.
It's funny how you get used to waiting for functions that should happen straight away. The Ballistix Sport AT means changing users is no longer a waiting game. Ironically, the Windows 10 Mail app has always been slow and buggy on my P.C... now it works the way it should, smoothly and speedily.
Of course, you're probably not going to spend hundreds of dollars on a RAM upgrade like this unless gaming is your thing. That's where the speeds of up to 3000 MT/s really go to work, eliminating lag and providing a solid base for your graphics card to do its thing.
At $400USD, the 32GB Ballistix Sport AT gaming kit is by no means a cheap upgrade, but it is easy and I can assure you it made instant, significant and noticeable gains in terms of speed and power.
Even if, like me, you're simply driven crazy by slow start-up times, a hefty investment in big RAM like this could be a pretty quick way to help you ease some of that frustration.
Click here for more information on Ballistix Sport AT gaming memory
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