14 DAY TRIAL // The efforts for a better computer have always driven us towards doing great sacrifices in order to obtain a faster machine. Some of the users even "cheat" technology in order to get higher benchmark scores for their computers. I am referring to overclocking, a widely spread technique designed to stretch the performances of different hardware components.
And yet, after all the efforts have been made and a while passes, everything seems to get back to "normal" as files are being written to the drive and become fragmented, spyware and adware crowd your operating system and the myriad of useless folders from incomplete uninstalled softwares harden the read process.
Of course, the reasons for computer slowdown are various and there is no single answer because generally a multitude of factors contribute to degrading the performance of your computer. You may not notice the slowdown at first but as time passes you will definitely notice the change.
The solutions are as many as the factors influencing the performance of the computer. For spyware/adware problems you get the appropriate software to root them out, for fragmented files there are defragmentors all over the Internet (and some of them are very good and free), for a burdened registry there are also appropriate tools to clean and compact it, so on and so forth.
But after all the cleaning is finished you are still not satisfied with how fast the applications load and move around. So what else can you do? One of the answers is cough up the money for increasing your RAM. The other one involves a mere download of a software.
MZ CPU Accelerator will give the foreground applications the thrust you always longed for. The principle is simple and does not involve complicated technology. The software is just changing the priority the CPU should treat the foreground app. This can also be done manually from Windows' Task Manager.
The interface is nice and clean and the application window is neatly "crowded" with all the options the software has to offer. The developer says that MZ CPU Accelerator can run on all Windows operating systems from 95 to XP, but we tested it on Vista and there are no issues there either. Another requirement, which unfortunately you cannot avoid, is DotNet Framework 2.0 from Microsoft.
Regarding the looks, the small window of the application is resize-free and you cannot enlarge it no matter what. Not that this would be a baddie, but it would be nice to give short-sighted users a chance to clearly see the options available.
The program's screen is split into several sections, some purely informational and some providing useful options. In the top left hand there is displayed the window that is currently under special attention from your CPU. You will notice that the moment you change the focus on another one, its title will be visible in the Currently Optimizing field.
In the opposite side there is the CPU usage level. No need to say that the lower the level, the better for you. However, when the entire bar turns green you should do some investigations to see what is eating your CPU.
Lower in the interface is the priority level you want to assign to the front window. There are only three choices available: above normal, high and real time. You should be careful when employing the last one, as it will cause the foreground application to use the entire CPU power. This may result in complete computer freeze.
Side by side with Priority Level choices are the configuration settings for the software. The developer deemed three of them to be sufficient. So you can set MZ CPU Accelerator to run at system startup, activate it and start minimized. This way you can ensure benefiting from its advantages at any time.
When minimized to system tray the application can either show the plain application icon (and we know that this can be achieved by any application minimizing to tray) or it can display some useful information like CPU usage. In the latter case all you will see is some numbers.
The great thing about the software is that it can be activated and deactivated anytime the users want. This way if you suddenly decide that for a short while you do not want it to throw some CPU power at the foreground application you can stop it without closing it.
The Good
The software is free and does a great job. It can even be deactivated if you do not want it to put some thrust into the foreground application.
It will not minimize to system tray if you close it. You will have to send it there from the appropriate button. This way clicking the "X" button will close the application and there will not be room for confusion.
The Bad
Wishful thinking: alerting the user when CPU level exceeds a certain limit.
The Truth
The application is absolutely free and the resource footprint did not exceed 12MB of RAM in my case. Easy to install and to uninstall, MZ CPU Accelerator will not pose any problems and will do its job efficiently.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
