I bought a new laptop and built a new PC. I want to run benchmarks on the cpu and harddrives and ram, what are some good programs I can use to compare the two?
why do you care? if you trade, u're using the simpliest application available that doesnt do too much fine floating point calculations pack up more RAM, u'll be fine
Check the Ziff-Davis website - they should have several different types of benchmarking tools. An overall throughput test that's close to the kind of load you plan to run will provide you a better measure than simple component tests (e.g., CPU, video, etc.).
I have used this one and it seems ok: http://www.7byte.com/ There are a million of them though. nitro