How much effect does a "slow" processor/RAM has an effect on overall performance

[Protocol Rahul]

I know the basic tip tops, what I mean is that windows phone are considered to work well with low processing power, and yet the phones like 1520, 930 are zippier with obvious superior processors.
I recently installed Windows Phone developer power tools to check the performance of my Lumia 1020, over all usage(games, browsing etc.) RAM topped ~ 700 mb, CPU usage around 50-80%. Even with this the Start screen behaved laggy, resuming screens here and there.
I compared my experience with a $100 android I have. I noticed the android even with a quarter of the ram which I had and lower processing, it opened apps faster like facebook, whatsapp some games, music etc.(Neglecting the obvious differences.)
Is it that our OS is simply not optimized or is it the specs.
My older Lumia 520 now feels ancient compared with 1020(even if 1020 is relatively old in terms of specs.)
With windows 10 I hope this would change but I think it is less likely.

 

[N_LaRUE]

Well, with anything, CPU and RAM have an impact on performance and though people like to tout WP performance on low end hardware, having better hardware obviously makes for a better experience. Newer CPUs and more RAM will always run smoother.

Going by what you say however it would seem that your phone might need a cleaning up. All software gets bogged down from time to time and I've found with WP updates, for me anyway, they've been hit or miss on performance causing me to hard reset or use the Lumia Software Recovery Tool. This usually helps.

I would suggest doing one of those two things and then see if the same performance issues persist.

I'm guessing with W10 there will be some issues with older hardware and lets face it, they're all getting long in the tooth now.