Best Computer Performance Optimization Books of 2025

Product Management’s Sacred Seven is a must-read book for anyone looking to become a world-class product manager. Written by three experienced product managers from Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, the book explores the seven essential skills necessary to excel in the field: product design, economics, psychology, user experience, data science, law & policy, and marketing & growth. The authors interviewed product leads and hiring managers from 52 top companies around the world to provide real-world examples and battle-tested interview tips. This book is an excellent resource for anyone looking to fast forward their product career.

Deep Learning: A Visual Approach by No Starch Press is an accessible and highly-illustrated introduction to deep learning that offers visual and conceptual explanations instead of equations. The book covers key deep learning algorithms without requiring complex math, making it ideal for beginners. The conversational style, extensive color illustrations, and real-world examples make it easy to understand the key concepts in deep learning, including how text generators create stories, how deep learning systems learn to play human games, and how image classification systems identify objects in photos. The book is perfect for anyone who wants to understand deep learning in depth without advanced math and programming.

Systems Performance, 2nd Edition is an excellent resource for professionals who want to learn about systems performance analysis and tuning. Brendan Gregg, a renowned expert in computing performance and cloud computing, covers everything from hardware and kernel internals to sophisticated profiling and tracing with perf, Ftrace, and BPF. The book is particularly useful for those working in cloud, web, and large-scale enterprise environments. Overall, Systems Performance, 2nd Edition is a must-read for anyone interested in optimizing their systems' performance and keeping up-to-date with the latest tools and techniques.

High Performance Python: Practical Performant Programming for Humans, published by O'Reilly Media, is an expanded edition that helps you learn how to locate performance bottlenecks and significantly speed up your code in high-data-volume programs. The book is aimed at experienced Python programmers and covers solutions to many issues, along with war stories from companies that use high-performance Python for social media analytics, productionized machine learning, and more. The authors delve into the fundamental theory behind design choices, making it easier for readers to understand Python’s implementation. Overall, this is an excellent guide for anyone looking to optimize their Python code.

This book, "Excel 2023: The Most Updated Bible to Master Microsoft Excel from Zero To Pro in Less than 5 Minutes A Day" by Andrew J. Nash, is an excellent resource for both beginners and intermediate users of Excel. It covers everything from the basics like cells, indexing, rows and columns, to more advanced topics like macros, filters, VBA, and more. The author has condensed his experience as an Excel teacher into this book, making it easy to understand and follow. The book comes with free bonuses, including over 100 Excel templates and a video course. Overall, this book is a valuable tool for anyone looking to improve their Excel skills.

Dive Into Algorithms is an engaging introduction to algorithms using Python. The book covers a wide range of algorithms, from standard computer science algorithms to those used in machine learning and artificial intelligence. The author also explores how ancient civilizations used algorithms for multiplication and division. The book teaches readers how to measure and optimize the performance of algorithms while providing the nitty-gritty details of today's most powerful ones. Overall, Dive Into Algorithms is an excellent book for beginners who want to learn about algorithms in a Pythonic way.

"Optimization of Physical Domain Design for VLSI" is an essential guidebook for VLSI engineers and researchers looking for practical guidance on optimizing physical domain design. Atul Prakash, an experienced VLSI designer and researcher, covers different optimization techniques and algorithms, including layout synthesis, floor planning, placement, and routing. The book also covers advanced topics such as clock tree synthesis, power optimization, and design for manufacturability. Prakash's writing style is clear and concise, making it easy for readers to understand and apply these techniques in their designs. Overall, this book is a must-read for anyone involved in VLSI design, providing readers with the necessary knowledge to stay at the forefront of the field."

BPF Performance Tools: Linux System and Application Observability is a comprehensive guide to using BPF-based performance tools for optimizing performance, troubleshooting code, strengthening security, and reducing costs. The book features over 150 ready-to-run analysis and debugging tools, expert guidance, and step-by-step tutorials on developing custom tools. From CPUs and memory to containers and security, readers will learn how to generate deeper technical insights for improving virtually any Linux system or application. Overall, this book is an essential resource for anyone working with recent Linux distributions in any enterprise or cloud environment.

The Art of Clean Code by Christian Mayer is an excellent book that teaches eight core principles to simplify code, making it more maintainable and efficient. The book emphasizes the importance of simplicity and reducing complexity to save time and effort in code maintenance. The author provides expert advice and real-world examples that can help programmers at any level. The book is written in a language-agnostic manner, making it easy to understand and apply. Overall, this book is a must-read for any programmer or project manager who wants to improve their coding skills and productivity.

This book is a must-have for database administrators and SQL developers who are under pressure to provide more speed. The author has redesigned and rewritten this new edition from scratch based on the last 15 years of learning, knowledge, and experience. Readers will learn how to troubleshoot, analyze, and design indexes and queries using best practices to minimize performance risk. The book also covers modern features such as Query Store, automatic execution plan correction, and memory-optimized OLTP tables and procedures. Overall, the book provides a systematic way to tune queries and make query performance tuning easier.