In parts 1 and 2 of this series we covered how to optimize your PC for multimedia use. In today’s post, we put these steps to the test. We performed these intense benchmarks on the Dell Vostro 360 multimedia rig – keep reading to find out how things panned out!
Cinebench 11.5
This is the benchmark for 3D graphics and rendering performance. It measures the raw performance of your CPU and GPU.
Combining the new drivers and the tricks with TuneUp significantly added more resources and upped the performance nicely.
SYSMark 2007 – Video Creation Benchmark
This time we used SYSMark 2007 – a widely used benchmarking tool, as it’s capable of measuring real-life performance of Windows Media (Encoder!), After Effects, Sony Vegas, PhotoShop and Illustrator.
Again, just applying a handful of tricks, the combination of TuneUp Program Deactivator and the newer drivers resulted in a noticeable boost in overall multimedia performance.
Photo Effects
For years I’ve used PhotoImpact to edit pictures and apply effects. Its filters and various effects can have a quite an impact on both the CPU and GPU, especially on high-resolution images.
To test the performance benefits of all tips given in this series, I used a 20 MP picture and applied the “Enhance” filter, which increases lighting, color saturation and more.
While a two-second difference doesn’t seem huge, it does show how much the wrong configuration can have an effect on a purely CPU/GPU heavy task.
Audio Performance – Audacity
I use Audacity quite often for cutting and editing audio files. And I’m not talking about low-quality MP3 files, but rather, several hour-long WAV files at 96 KHz sampling rate. One to two hours can easily take up 2 gigs of RAM, which is why having more memory readily available is critical. Plus, converting such large files takes forever if the CPU isn’t fast enough or busy with other tasks.
Again: Lower is better! Audacity was able to wrap up its task a lot quicker than before.
Bottom Line
Applying all our tips, installing drivers and using various tools to boost performance had quite an effect on all multimedia applications. This means, multimedia enthusiasts could have a hefty hardware upgrade (up to 20-30% boost in performance) by simply investing less than an hour — and very little cash — in optimizing their PCs!
