[Techtalk] more cores, more slows

[Akkana Peck]

Carla Schroder writes:
> It seems the more powerful hardware gets, the more software sucks it up, so it 
> still feels like driving an old 486 SX.

So true!

> The biggest offender is Web pages. Facebook is nasty, of course, with all of 
> its squillion random scripts coded by gerbils on crack, and lots of other. Is 
> it worth upgrading to Intel? Or a higher-end AMD? Am I forever doomed to be 
> disappointed?

On web pages like Facebook, is it possible that the problem is the
network, not the CPU? I find a lot of sites are slow because they
have to load ten squillion data chunks and scripts and, of course,
ads, so part of the page will load then it'll just sit there waiting
until all the ads and other pieces coming from other places load.

If you haven't already, run a performance monitor and see what your
CPU loads are like while waiting for the slow stuff.

Also: do you leave your browser up for days at a time? At least with
Firefox, I find that sometimes it just starts using CPU for no
reason ... on the laptop, the giveaway is that my fan suddenly comes
on, even though firefox isn't even visible, hidden on a different
desktop. Quitting firefox gets rid of the CPU load and the spinning fan.
If you keep the same firefox running for days at a time with a
zillion tabs loaded, that might be your performance problem right there.

Of course, flashblock, noscript, and disabling image animation will
do a lot to reduce CPU load used by the browser.  These also cut
down on distracting flashing/spinning in my peripheral vision while
I'm trying to read page content -- drives me BATTY.  You can always
enable features for the few pages where you actually want them.
(The down side: tons of pages don't work at all unless you enable
javascript. Have web developers never heard of <noscript> tags?)

Rudy Zijlstra writes:
> I am happy that FireFox and Chrome are essentially single threaded, so
> they typically use only a single CPU. I have a tendency to just leave

Are they?  I thought separate tabs typically used separate processes
(at least in Chrome) and thus separate CPUs.

Miriam English writes:
> It bugs me that developers largely seem fixated on the fastest
> computers with the speediest internet connections, ignoring the fact
> that most people still have old computers and slow internet. There

That's always been true: developers expect hot new machines every year
or two, and management obliges because otherwise they'll feel slighted.

I've long felt that developers should be encouraged to use older,
slower, lower memory machines as their primary desktop machines.
You'd see a lot less software bloat. They could always have a few
powerful machines around to use as build servers if needed.
And yes, I say that as a developer myself.

FWIW, I'm typing this on an Intel dual-core E5200, a couple years
old now, with 4G RAM. and my laptop is a dual Atom with 2G.
Performance is fine with a lightweight window manager (openbox) and
limiting the number of browser tabs and bloated apps running at once.

	...Akkana