MySQL update takes huge time - php

Question

I have approx 230K records in MySQL user table and i was updating 14K user information via php with simple foreach from variable and using update query to update the column of 14K user . It took 1 hour, 9 min approx to run the query. First it took 13 min to update approx 1100 records and than it took another 56 min to update the remaining records.
Is this usual or do i need to upgrade my system, where i am running. I have 8GB RAM, i5 processor 2nd gen and using ubuntu 14.04.
If this is usual, what is the best way big companies handle such or bigger number of user records in fastest possible way in mysql ?
Just in case, if some one needs to know the exact code that ran.
foreach($_SESSION['tupple'] as $key => $value) {
$commitUpdate = $mysqli->query("UPDATE user_table set col_name='".$mysqli->real_escape_string($value['col_name'])."' where id='".$mysqli->real_escape_string($value['id'])."'");
}

Answer 1

You can speed things up using a prepared query, so it only has to parse the query once.
$stmt = $mysqli->prepare("UPDATE user_table SET col_name = ? WHERE id = ?");
$stmt->bind_param("si", $col_name, $id);
foreach ($_SESSION['tupple'] as $value) {
$col_name = $value['col_name'];
$id = $value['id'];
$stmt->execute();
}
Also, if you're using InnoDB, start a transaction before the loop, and commit it at the end.
$mysqli->begin_transaction(MYSQLI_TRANS_START_READ_WRITE);
// above loop
$mysqli->commit();
It's also possible to update multiple rows in a single query:
UPDATE user_table
SET col_name = CASE id
WHEN $id1 THEN '$name1'
WHEN $id2 THEN '$name2'
WHEN $id3 THEN '$name3'
...
END
WHERE id IN ($id1, $id2, $id3, ...)
You can use this type of syntax to group multiple entries in $_SESSION['tupple'] into batches.