I did some objective testing on my PC with eboostr and found some interesting figures.
My PC
Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (6.1, Build 7600) (7600.win7_rtm.090713-1255)
System Model: XFX nForce 780i 3-Way SLI
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9550 @ 2.83GHz (4 CPUs), ~4.0GHz
Memory: 4096MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 4094MB RAM
2 x 30GB Vertex RAID 0
I wanted to test Superfetch as well so I disabled the superfetch service and deleted all the superfetch .pf files in c:\windows\prefetch then disabled the eboostr service as well as the eBoostr control panel.
Before each test I rebooted and ran idle tasks C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks and waited for CPU load to be idle.
My ebostr settings were a 1.5GB memory cache with MS Word 2007 set as a high priority item.
I also tested a 4GB USB eBoostr cache
I used Passmark AppTimer to get the load times, with these settings.
I chose MS Word as the test subject as it is a fairly large program and one used by most most people.
Results:
As you can see it takes quite a bit longer to open word for the first time. That is because programs load the main program as well as other DLL's. In Words case it consumes 23MB of RAM on load then when shut down only 6MB is freed so when it is loaded next time only 6MB of program has to be loaded.
Boot times do suffer by a couple of seconds but I think this is an acceptable trade off.
The 4GB USB eBoostr cache was slower as I suspected. Using a USB cache on a PC with a very fast storage and plenty of memory actually hurts performance quite badly. This may not be the case on a PC with a slow HDD and or small amount of RAM.
eBoostr Speed Check 4GB USB Cache
Direct access speed: 241.383545 MB/s
Cache enabled access speed: 172.391083 MB/s
Ratio: 0.714179
VS
eBoostr Speed Check 1.5 GB RAM Cache
Direct access speed: 235.255920 MB/s
Cache enabled access speed: 1026.571289 MB/s
Ratio: 4.363636
I also tested the eboostr speed test and found it was a bit more optimistic than my tests.
Yes the figures are correct it only takes my PC less than a second to open word.
Conclusion:
In real world terms, load times are what makes a PC feel slow. Even on a fast PC with fast storage there are performance gains to be made from both SuperFetch and eBoostr.
According to the eBoostr Statistics Viewer Word is only 47% cached so a larger cache allowing Word, and all your other programs, to be 100% cached would give an even better result.
Edit: I did another test with a 2GB memory cache. This allowed Word to be 97% cached.
First load time: 0.3934
Average load time:0.3438
This is great! It means that with a big enough memory cache first load times are not significantly higher than subsequent loads.
Before doing these tests I thought getting an SSD was the best plan for upgrading storage performance. Now I recommend eBoostr with 4GB memory cache approx. AU$90 for an extra 4GB RAM + eBoostr AU$45 = AU$135 Much cheaper than an SSD.
I then turned off Superfetch and found that load times were not increased. Is it recommended that SuperFetch be turned off?
