Stress is extremely important in English. Stressing the wrong syllable or pronouncing all syllables with equal stress are a common problem for non-native speakers, and can be very confusing for the listener.

A native speaker may not understand a word that has the wrong stress.
BA-NA-NA (all syllables with equal stress) and ba-na-NA (wrong syllable stressed) will not easily be understood by someone expecting to hear ba-NA-na.  Learning stress patterns takes time and effort, but using correct stress will significantly improve your clarity and fluency.

In English, the sentence rhythm comes from stressing important words, called content words, and reducing unimportant ones, called function words. Only 1 syllable in each word is stressed.

CONTENT WORDS
carry meaning and are stressed.
They are:

  • Noun
  • Verbs
  • Adjectives
  • Adverbs
  • Negatives

FUNCTION WORDS
don’t carry much meaning and are reduced. They are:

  • Articles
  • modals
  • Prepositions
  • Pronouns
  • The verb “to be”

In the sentence: This is a faster system with a higher capacity, and it has the same footprint as prior models.

If we hear only the content words we can still get the general meaning
–  faster system higher capacity same footprint prior models.

If we hear only the function words, we have no idea of the meaning.
–  This is a with a and it has the as

It is the combination of stressed and unstressed syllables that creates the rhythm of English.

The correct stress for this sentence is:

This is a FASter SYStem with a HIGHer caPAcity, and it has the SAME FOOTprint as PRIor MOdels.