[John Rogers]

Not sure if you know it but you can set an application such as one that works with large data files weather JPEGs or Tiffs or PDFs or ??? that can use 1 or all of the cores in any CPU and how it works with RAM and such. Start Windows Task Manager, then select "Details" and scroll to the software you are running that needs power. Then right click and select "Set Priority" and select "high" or "Real Time", click "change priority". Then click "change affinity" and select how many CPUs you want then click the OK button.

Not a good idea to have more than 1 application to be set as fastest but cascade them.
If one of the apps is downloading from the internet it does not need a lot of CPU power so knock it down a bit. You can also use a built in virtual machine and run a program in that virtual machine to isolate it from the real world. This was done a year or two by a computer guy who ran a copy of Windows in a virtual machine setup to look like it was his only one and he let it get hit with a "ransom"! Well he traced back to the bad guys and wiped them out!!!!!
John Rogers the oldracer