Optimizing a computer for Chrome/Web Apps

[Christina M]

Budget (including currency): $5000

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Chrome, Web Apps, Extensions, rendering Client-side scripting faster

 

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

 

No existing parts

Upgrading from a potato

Refresh rates are not of value

Going to buy it soon but can wait for the right parts

I need the computer to render websites even with janky scripting lightning fast. I want literally the fastest of the fast. If it saves even milliseconds I want those milliseconds. I don't know if there's a way to force chrome to utilize some of the gpu or if it's just purely going off of CPU/Ram? Etc. I need some help here? I know it sounds like a weird thing to do but this is what I need. TBH the budget can exceed the 5k if it's justified.

 

Something else to be noted I don't need multiple tabs. I just want one tab to be working as fast as possible. This leaves me with questions like do I need a processor with higher single-core benchmarks or would a better multicore be of more value even though my primary goal is optimizing one single tab as fast as possible?

 

[Drama Lama]

you won't need a 5K budget just for webbrowsing

[Fasauceome]

11 minutes ago, Christina M said:

 I don't know if there's a way to force chrome to utilize some of the gpu or if it's just purely going off of CPU/Ram?

If you don't know what "hardware acceleration" is you might not be in the right business tbh

 

11 minutes ago, Christina M said:

Something else to be noted I don't need multiple tabs. I just want one tab to be working as fast as possible. This leaves me with questions like do I need a processor with higher single-core benchmarks or would a better multicore be of more value even though my primary goal is optimizing one single tab as fast as possible?

Single core is dominant for web browsing so currently a 5000 series ryzen CPU with high clocks is better

 

But realistically you cannot funnel $5000 into MOAR BROWSER SPEED because at some point chrome is not allowed to chew up more resources. You won't be able to dedicate 100% of your computer's power to web browsing unless you design your own web browser.

[Christina M]

5 minutes ago, Drama Lama said:

you won't need a 5K budget just for webbrowsing

It's not web browsing, it's an in-house web app I need ot run fast. I want the best processor and etc. I could easily hit $3000 with that information alone.

[Christina M]

6 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

If you don't know what "hardware acceleration" is you might not be in the right business tbh

 

I came here for help not attitude.

 

6 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

Single core is dominant for web browsing so currently a ryzen CPU with high clocks is better

 

But realistically you cannot funnel $5000 into MOAR BROWSER SPEED because at some point chrome is not allowed to chew up more resources. You won't be able to dedicate 100% of your computer's power to web browsing unless you design your own web browser.

This is the kind of stuff I'm trying to figure out. Thank you.

 

---

 

This is for work for my boss using a custom web app that uses a lot of javascript. His load times are 2-3 seconds on some screens and I wanna get him down as low as possible. I came for help not for all of this. Yes I don't know a lot about hardware. If I did I wouldn't be asking?

 

Also you say chrome is not allowed to chew up more resources. But I asked if there was a way to utilize the GPU. Is there a way to give it more or another browser that would be more up to the task?

 

I like LTT so I thought this would be a good place to ask >_>

[Fasauceome]

4 minutes ago, Christina M said:

This is the kind of stuff I'm trying to figure out

The fastest kind of computer for your uses that I could think of would be something like this

 

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor
CPU Cooler	ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 280 72.8 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler	$109.99 @ Amazon
Motherboard	MSI MAG X570 TOMAHAWK WIFI ATX AM4 Motherboard	$236.99 @ Adorama
Memory	G.Skill Ripjaws V 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-4000 CL16 Memory	$269.99 @ Newegg
Storage	Sabrent Rocket Q4 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	$149.97 @ Amazon
Video Card	EVGA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti 8 GB FTW3 ULTRA GAMING iCX3 Video Card	$798.95 @ Amazon
Case	Fractal Design Meshify C ATX Mid Tower Case	$78.98 @ Newegg
Power Supply	SeaSonic FOCUS Plus Gold 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	$137.35 @ Amazon
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$1782.22
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-12-11 11:27 EST-0500

 

 

Until we get some 5000 series Threadripper CPUs for quad channel memory combined with supreme single core performance.

 

Overclock the stuffing out of the CPU and graphics card, might shave some microseconds off your webpage loading times. 2.5Gb ethernet for highest possible access speeds. Really fast memory, plenty of power supply wattage in case some kind of upgrade you find can produce a tangible benefit. 

 

Past this, you'd have a hard time getting any measurable improvement for your purposes.

[igormp]

There you go:

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor 
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler 
Motherboard: Asus ROG STRIX B550-F GAMING (WI-FI) ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($209.99 @ B&H) 
Memory: Crucial Ballistix 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory  ($299.99 @ B&H) 
Storage: Samsung 970 Evo 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  ($129.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER 6 GB VENTUS XS OC Video Card  ($300.74 @ Office Depot) 
Case: Fractal Design Meshify C ATX Mid Tower Case  ($78.98 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: Corsair RM (2019) 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($124.99 @ Best Buy) 
Total: $1144.68
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-12-11 11:28 EST-0500

 

No reason to get a higher core count CPU since you'll be using only a single tab, so have a 6c/12t high the highest single core perf as of today. (good luck finding it available for sale tho).

I went overkill with the RAM and PSU, but it still fits your budget, so why not eh?

 

The GPU isn't really needed, but it's a nice mid-end card in case you webapp does make use of hardware acceleration.

[Christina M]

 

1 minute ago, Fasauceome said:

Until we get some 5000 series Threadripper CPUs for quad channel memory combined with supreme single core performance.

 

Overclock the stuffing out of the CPU and graphics card, might shave some microseconds off your webpage loading times. 2.5Gb ethernet for highest possible access speeds. Really fast memory, plenty of power supply wattage in case some kind of upgrade you find can produce a tangible benefit. 

 

Past this, you'd have a hard time getting any measurable improvement for your purposes.

Thank you so much for this. Why not the AMD Ryzen 9?

[Fasauceome]

4 minutes ago, Christina M said:

 

Thank you so much for this. Why not the AMD Ryzen 9?

The single core speeds would be nearly identical, when pushing an overclock on both with a quality motherboard and cooler you likely would get the same clock speeds. 

[Christina M]

Just now, Fasauceome said:

The single core speeds would be nearly identical, when pushing an overclock on both with a quality motherboard and cooler you likely would get the same clock speeds. 

Thank you so much Fasauceome and you too igormp

[P0ck3ts]

3 hours ago, Fasauceome said:

 2.5Gb ethernet for highest possible access speeds. 

unless the service being received is 2.5GB (or close) a faster ethernet isn't going to do a whole lot. Since this is for a business, you may have something like fiber or T3 which may provide fast speeds (I have 1000MB coming into my home). That being said, if you do not have speeds that require something like 2.5GB ethernet, I wouldn't stick my money into one if the speeds do not run that high.

 

firm agree on the rest of your post!

[Fasauceome]

1 hour ago, P0ck3ts said:

unless the service being received is 2.5GB (or close) a faster ethernet isn't going to do a whole lot. Since this is for a business, you may have something like fiber or T3 which may provide fast speeds (I have 1000MB coming into my home). That being said, if you do not have speeds that require something like 2.5GB ethernet, I wouldn't stick my money into one if the speeds do not run that high.

 

firm agree on the rest of your post!

I was thinking it might be relevant for something like on site cached webpages but that's super niche anyway

[OrdinaryPhil]

Things that you should consider:

Stop using Chrome? Unless you need something very specifically tied to that ecosystem, Chrome is among the worst (slowest) browsers for displaying web content. Not only is Chrome divided into an incoherent mess of processes and services within Windows, it also spends the majority of your system resources on telemetry and not rendering content. 

Secondly, you cannot fully cache browsing to RAM with chrome.

Those two problems (while only a small few) are reasons to use something like FireFox instead. You can cache to RAM in either, but you can migrate your entire browsing session data (roaming) to RAM as well. This will dramatically increase page render time, as well as access to hardware. You can do some of this in the new Edge as well, not all of it.

You'll also need a 1Gb or 2.5Gb NIC - you can get 10Gb but, if you plan to work with active sites, outside your intranet, there aren't too many ISPs offering more than 1Gb services at present so, the gains are lost.

As well, you'll want a decent managed switch so that you can isolate the traffic by application (Firefox, Edge, Chrome, etc) and fence it in. Some consumer routers offer limited version of this through QoS, but a managed switch is often similar in price to those routers and offers less.

Barring that. If you are using this strictly for browsing, I'd stop at 8 cores for your CPU, and get the fasted BASE clock speed you can. Pair this will as much RAM as possible, and an entry level GPU. I'd recommend something like an i7-10700, and 64GB RAM - as a starting point. Browsers are black holes for RAM so if you get the right board, you can feed it up to 256GB without dipping your toes into server hardware... but that may step outside your use case.

[igormp]

3 hours ago, OrdinaryPhil said:

Stop using Chrome? Unless you need something very specifically tied to that ecosystem, Chrome is among the worst (slowest) browsers for displaying web content. Not only is Chrome divided into an incoherent mess of processes and services within Windows, it also spends the majority of your system resources on telemetry and not rendering content. 

Except that Chrome's V8 beats SpiderMonkey's ass in 80% of the benchmarks. Chrome may be kinda bad, but firefox is still trying to catch up in performance, specially when it comes to process isolation and JS performance.

[Grabhanem]

Is this an app you (as a company) are developing?

 

A poorly optimized app is always going to be slow no matter what hardware you throw at it. There's often more to be gained by making better use of the hardware you have rather than trying to brute-force a slow program to be fast.