You can significantly improve the streaming capability of your TV or mobile device simply by upgrading the device. But how do you know if an upgrade is required? Well, you can tell if an upgrade is what you need to improve streaming by measuring the CPU usage and amount of available memory in your system.
First and foremost, keep in mind that technology is on a rapid evolution. They say a year in today’s technology is like 20 years in the traditional non-technical world. What seemed to work perfectly last year may not perform as well this year. This principle is also true when it comes to streaming devices such as Fire TV, Fire TV stick, Android Boxes, and mobile devices.
For instance, a majority of people still stuck on first-generation Fire TV sticks and older versions of the Android Box, often complain about slow streaming speeds and buffering. However, all they need is a device upgrade. First-gen Fire TV Sticks run a dual-core processor with just 1GB of RAM memory. They may have worked perfectly when they were launched way back in 2014. But seriously that was more than 4 years ago. That’s like decades ago in the digital world.
As technology advances, today’s streaming devices demand more processing power than in the past. In fact, videos today come in higher quality and with a higher demand for power. You need an upgrade from your old system to a more advanced and efficient device. This is if you want to keep on enjoying high-quality streaming without annoying buffering problems.
You may have some understandable reservations on spending more money on the best streaming device. But if you consider how much you are actually saving by cutting the cord, you’ll see the sense in upgrading your streaming device.
How to Improve Streaming
The first step to improving your streaming experience is to check your CPU performance and determine the amount of RAM memory that your device has. CPU and memory tests will show you how well your device is performing.
To get a clear picture of how different devices perform when it comes to streaming power, we compared CPU and available memory in five popular streaming systems. This includes 1st Gen Fire TV Stick, Second Generation Fire TV Stick, Fire TV 3, Beelink Android Box, and NVIDIA Shield TV.
We used different apps to determine CPU usage and amount of available memory on each device.
We found out the following:
• 1st and 2nd Generation Fire TV Stick
This device showed high CPU spikes when you do simple tasks. This includes moving around the home screen or shifting through different menus. This is because there’s usually very little memory left on the system when you do simple activities. The first-generation Fire TV Stick presents even more problems because it has a low processing power.
In the 1st Generation Fire TV Stick, you’ll clearly see CPU usage spike up to 90% and come back to settle at around 50%. The amount of available memory is also extremely low. It ranges between 10 and 15MB of RAM. The 2nd Generation Fire TV Stick has a significant improvement with CPU averaging 15% to 20% and available RAM memory hovering around 75MB.
• Fire TV 3
Fire TV 3 is a little bit more advanced and powerful than both 1st and 2nd generation Fire TV sticks because it comes with a stronger CPU and additional 1GB RAM memory. If you test it on the same IPTV channel, you’ll notice CPU usage of around 14% to 16% and up to 77MB of available RAM memory.
• Beelink Android Box
Beelink A1 Android TV Box is even more powerful than Fire TV 3. This is because it comes with 4 GB of RAM memory. On the same test, it shows CPU usage of around 20% to 30% and available RAM memory of 2800MB. It is, without a doubt, a better upgrade. It’s designed to improve streaming compared to Amazon Fire TV Stick and Fire TV 3.
• NVIDIA Shield TV
NVIDIA Shield is the most powerful streaming device on the market today. In the same test, it showed low CPU usage of just 10 to 15 percent, thanks to its powerful processor. It also gives you a fairly large amount of available RAM memory of around 350MB. Keep in mind that NVIDIA Shield comes with 3GB of internal RAM memory.
These test results clearly show you which streaming device is the winner. If you are still on the 1st and 2nd generation Fire TV Sticks and want to improve streaming without buffering, you may consider upgrading to either Beelink Android Box or NVIDIA Shield.
Let us know in the comments down below if this article helped you improve streaming on your device!
