As it was a branded system, overclocking the CPU was not an option, so I tried replacing the memory with 4Gb faster memory. No difference was perceived or benchmarked. Adding a relatively new graphics card also had similar non-results. Then I saw an offer last weekend for a relatively cheap but slow SanDisk 128Gb SSD for just £50. Not an Extreme or Ultra just a basic SSD.
A quick clone of the hard disk to the SSD and the system rebooted a lot quicker. Now this is to be expected and is often used as an example of why you should buy an SSD. For me it is not so important as I typically only start a PC once a day and a few seconds here or there doesn't seem that important. What is important is when you click on an icon, I expect to see the system respond with a new window filled with information, an application splash screen, a positive message, etc. Click on another icon and the same should happen immediately. Put the cursor somewhere and type and I expect to see the letters appear as I type not a few seconds later. That is being responsive.
Needless to say, that is what this humble little system did. Yes, I benchmarked the file data bandwidth to be over four times faster, and the overall PCmark shows more that a 50% increase, but the responsiveness improvement was fantastic. And the system was an awful lot quieter too! Also, if you turned off automatic defragmentation the little disk light doesn't keep flashing.
I've decided to keep this little system and upgrade it to Windows 8 when it's released later this month to see if it finally is any good at all on the desktop.
