Bogged Down Computer Outlook

I have a pretty new computer with the intel T5600 and 1 GB RAM. It seems as though when I synced my treo with the outlook all of a sudden outlook became a resource hog and bogs down my computer. I haven't had any trouble until recently and this seems to be the most likely culprit. When I close outlook the problem seems to largely go away. On my old computer which was about 5 years old, I ran similar programs and never seemed to have this much trouble. I constantly multitask so I usually have several programs open, but even with my old computer never noticed this much slowness. Is there a better alternative to outlook that I can sync and interface to others with or am I stuck with outlook. When I say sync I mean my calendar, contacts, etc. Is there some setting in outlook that i might need to change?

Thanks so much for the help.

Keyser