I once spent $5K on one with 32K of RAM and one floppy drive. I later bought one for $3K... it had 512K RAM + TWO FDs... My first "trading rig"... XT class machine, 2 HD FDs + satellite dish/receiver... $10,000. (Come to think about it... if I had back all the $$$ I've spent on computers and such, I could buy a ROLLS!!)
hope something like this woud help- http://wingeek.com/blogs/stevesinchak/312/356/windows-7-performance-tweaks/
You haven't demonstrated that Win7 is a resource hog, taking advantage of free memory for caching doesn't make an OS a resource hog. It really sounds like you don't understand how operating systems work. The fact you spent $5.5k on a PC shows that you aren't very technically savvy as you have clearly wasted your money. In terms of "kids now a days", my first computer was a TRS80 Model I, look it up if you don't know what that is.
Why do you need a huge HD (you could have just updated your old one for $150 by the way) and who cares about booting time? (how often do you boot anyway?) You should have bought an Xbox 360 AND a PS3 AND a Wii and it still would have been cheaper, if you are into gaming.... There is only 1 person you can blame, yourself.... Let's see: PS3 and an XBox 360 and a decent new computer way less than 2000$. What the hell did you spend the other 3+K dollars on?
mikasa, GTS is correct. The way memory is used changed from XP to Vista (and hence, Windows 7, too). In fact, one can argue that in XP, RAM was being wasted by not being utilized. Vista and 7 just try to utilize RAM to the max. Proper use of the in-memory buffer cache can reduce the amount of disk traffic and hence increase system throughput and decrease response time. This is how Linux / Unix-es have done it for a long time (c.f. The Design of the Unix Operating System, Maurice Bach, Chapter 3), and it took Redmond 15 years or so to figure that out. Booting time : not sure about that.
STUPID TALK! That's like saying, "a race car is inefficient because it doesn't haul around a load of crap"...
Why do people buy Rolex? To tell time more accurately, of course! For me, I use a Timex digital watch $19.95 to tell time. Good enough for me. All my 4 PC boxes, HP/Compaq, bought at Fry's at lower than $400. They are "good enough" for my trading. It all depends on what you value. For an Olympian runner perhaps a $500 pair of Nike would give him the extra edge. If you don't need it, then any $50 pair of sneakers would be good enough.
The ignorance in this thread is amazing - your analogy makes zero sense. You think your PC runs slower when the memory is 25% used vs 5% used?!? If it makes you happier to keep your memory usage really low than there are plenty of crap programs out there that will force Windows to page its core components out to disk to "maximize free RAM" but doing that only hurts your performance. You paid for the memory, why not let the system do something useful with it? ....unless you are like the OP and bought it only for bragging rights.
LOL you spent $5.5k on a computer? Are you trying to play Crysis on the highest settings while fragging HQ videos? If not, you have wasted about $4k.