how to determine bottlenecks

I was wondering how I can determine the bottleneck on my laptop. SRLab tells me its my CPU, but I'm not sure how reliable that is.
Specs:
Windows Vista
Core Duo T2500 2.0 GHz
2046MB ram @ 667MHz
7900GS currently at stock speed but OC'd to 500/1050 at most (with good temps)

I realize that my computer is better than most out there, but I was considering upgrading to Core2 (if my processor is the bottleneck).

Oh, also my screen spazzes out once in a while when I minimize windows or open new things. I think it only happens when the OS is doing a transition (like a fade, and it stops spazzing out if i turn off these effects). Anyone know what the problem is?

 

Processors are rarely bottlenecks, and the the Core Duos/Core 2 Duos aren't bottlenecks at all.

It looks like everything is pretty good. You have a 7200RPM hard drive, and usually it's the hard drive that is the bottleneck.

You probably can't do anything more to remove any bottlenecks.

 

You'll have to describe the problem a little better, that's pretty vague. What is "spazzing out"? As for your "bottleneck", I don't understand - how could the CPU be a bottleneck, and for what? Your system is probably one of the best on this site, and that includes a lot of notebook enthusiasts!

 

I would not worry about any bottlenecks until you start seeing problems--a bottleneck is somewhat subjective...depending on what you're doing there could well be different bottlenecks.

You should be set for the foreseeable future. The CPU should not be an issue until you need 64bit for something.

 

It looks like you dont have a bottleneck You've got a very fast PC, and I seriously doubt youll run into ANY bottlenecks.

 

Technically, he does have a bottleneck, and it's most definitely his hdd. While is not as big of a bottleneck as others with 4200rpm ones, it's still a heck of a lot slower than any other component on his machine.

Any wait that he is going to experience while loading stuff or whatnot will be due to the hard drive, not the lack of processing power or ram.

 

His hard disk is not a bottleneck when actually playing games. The RAM is what gets used more in newer games like Battlefield 2142, and the notebook has 2 GB which is more than enough. When loading, the hard disk will always be the bottleneck, because it is where the game is getting all the data from. In gaming, it is almost always the graohics card that bottlenecks the system, because it simply cannot push out the performance. In this case, while there is a bottlececk present, like in all systems, it is not something that anyone will notice. That is because the notebook is performing as fast as it can.

 

The hard drive remans a "bottleneck" while gaming as the game loads new sections into ram. This varies game to game of course, and may not be as relevant in some as others. It is very relevant in HL2, where the game loads in sections. It is not a bottleneck generally while playing each section provided you have sufficient ram.

 

if you're trying to compare to a best desktop specs then everything is a bottleneck

or if you mean you want best current specs of a laptop then core 2 duo is best.

even regular desktop users use 7200 rpm so hd isn't even much bottleneck

 

ok thanks. well i was just wondering because my processor subscore is my lowest (on WinSAT) with a 4.7, then memory 4.9.... but i guess it's fine.

And about the "spazzing out" whenever windows does an animation, the screen will flicker or get distorted while the animation is in progress... it lasts for maybe a split second (just while the animation is taking place) so its not really too much of a problem, but it is annoying. i thought at first it was because i overclocked my graphics card so i dropped it back to stock but its still happenning... :$