mjranum@osiris.UUCP (04/12/87)
Saw and played with new IBMs today.
1) Norton Sysinfo says it's 1.9 times the speed of a PC. I was not blown away
by this. My 90$ 4-layer 8MHZ clone board is rather a bit faster than
that. The on-board RAM is apparently the same (?). This is not a good
deal as far as I am concerned, since an AT clone is ~1200$ and that
will blow the socks off the new IBM.
2) It looks slow. Bit-mapped console is nice, but no suntools... The windows
do not operate with blinding speed. The shades of gray monitor is
slick. I like that part.
3) It has the little weenie floppies. This is fine, since it is backward
compatible, and you can still run all your old stuff. Need I mention
that your old 5 1/4 inch floppies will not fit in the drive ? The
salesman pointed out that IBM is coming out with a 30$ package
(sounds just like KERMIT)(ICK!) to transer files from PC to PC2
via the com port. I pointed out that this requires a PC, too, and
since an average joe clone is faster anyway, I will spare myself the
trouble of transferring anything at all, thank you.
All in all, not impressive. You Sun workstation owners can feel safe.
In fact, you PC JUNIOR owners won't get cybernetic penis-envy from
this one.
-mjr()
--
fnordfnordfnordfnordfnordfnordfnordfnordfnordfnordfnordfnordfnordfnordfnord
? - decuac -- osiris!mjranum
\__ gouldsd!mjranumwtm@neoucom.UUCP (04/13/87)
In article <1048@osiris.UUCP>, mjranum@osiris.UUCP (Marcus Ranum) writes: > > Saw and played with new IBMs today. > > 1) Norton Sysinfo says it's 1.9 times the speed of a PC. I was not blown away > by this. My 90$ 4-layer 8MHZ clone board is rather a bit faster than > that. Hmmm, I wonder if the 8086 could be replaced with a NEC V-30. I replaced the 8086 in my AT&T 6300 with a V-30 and the rperformance as reported by Sysinfo was raised from 1.9 to 4.2. Now, I don't really believe that the performance boost was that dramatic in real life, but the speed gain due to the V-30 is readily apparent in day-to-day operation. I suspect that Sysinfo must do some string manipulation as a major part of its test. I say that because the V-30 is optimized for speed in this area. For string searching, the V-30 will complete an operation in about 1/3 the time an 8086 clocked at the same rate requires. The V-30 also performs integer multiplies at about twice the speed of an 8086. In other areas, such as integer addition, the V-30 shows only marginal improvement. Over all, the AT&T 6300 equipped with a V-30 operates about 0.7 the speed of an 8 MHz IBM-AT. Knowing IBM, that level of performace would be too good for an entry level PC. I't wouldn't surpirse me if Brother Blue plays tricks in the POST like they did in AT to prevent the machine from operating with a souped-up crystal. Or, in this case, a V-30. Bill Mayhew Division of Basic Medical Sciences Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine Rootstown, OH 44272 USA phone: 216-325-2511 (wtm@neoucom.UUCP ...!cbatt!neoucom!wtm)
mjranum@osiris.UUCP (Marcus Ranum) (04/15/87)
In article <546@neoucom.UUCP>, wtm@neoucom.UUCP (Bill Mayhew) writes: > Hmmm, I wonder if the 8086 could be replaced with a NEC V-30. I > replaced the 8086 in my AT&T 6300 with a V-30 and the rperformance > as reported by Sysinfo was raised from 1.9 to 4.2. Why waste the money ? There are machines out there that will run better than even the souped up critter. Buy an AT clone and put a 80386 cheetah in it. Run microport on it. Have a real computer. --mjr() -- fnordfnordfnordfnordfnordfnordfnordfnordfnordfnordfnordfnordfnordfnordfnord ? - decuac -- osiris!mjranum \__ gouldsd!mjranum
johnm@auscso.UUCP (04/15/87)
> Hmmm, I wonder if the 8086 could be replaced with a NEC V-30. I > replaced the 8086 in my AT&T 6300 with a V-30 and the rperformance > as reported by Sysinfo was raised from 1.9 to 4.2. Now, I don't > really believe that the performance boost was that dramatic in real > life, but the speed gain due to the V-30 is readily apparent in > day-to-day operation. I have a Compaq Deskpro (8086) and am interested in replacing the 8086 with a NEC V30 to improve response under Xenix until I decide if I want to plunk down a bundle and get a 286 turbo card. I would like to know if anybody has done this in their Deskpro, and if so, are there any problems with operation. Please post replies here or send e-mail. Thanks. {ihnp4, seismo}!ut-sally!ut-ngp!melpad!jclyde!john
john@hpcvlo.HP.COM (John Eaton) (04/16/87)
<<<<< < < Hmmm, I wonder if the 8086 could be replaced with a NEC V-30. I < replaced the 8086 in my AT&T 6300 with a V-30 and the rperformance < as reported by Sysinfo was raised from 1.9 to 4.2. Now, I don't < really believe that the performance boost was that dramatic in real < life, but the speed gain due to the V-30 is readily apparent in < day-to-day operation. < I plugged a V-30 into a model 30 and it ran 4.2 in sysinfo. This means that it runs 4.2 times as fast as a standard PC if the only application that you ever run is sysinfo. Otherwise figure 2-2.5 times performance. Norton also reports that there is an extra 190K of memory that in fact is not there. It doesn't seem to be able to distinguish between real memory and bus capacitance very well. John Eaton !hplabs!hp-pcd!john
connery@bnrmtv.UUCP (Glenn Connery) (04/19/87)
> I plugged a V-30 into a model 30 and it ran 4.2 in sysinfo. This means that > it runs 4.2 times as fast as a standard PC if the only application that you > ever run is sysinfo. Otherwise figure 2-2.5 times performance. > > John Eaton > !hplabs!hp-pcd!john The Norton SI figure is notoriously inaccurate as a predictor of actual performance--I thought everyone knew that by now! 2 times faster at multiplies maybe (I don't remember the actual figure) but the overall performance improvement will be just barely noticable, maybe 5-10%. p.s. To all those now bashing me regarding my statement on protected mode being faster than real mode... you are obviously correct. I used some very old info not backed up by personal experience. 'nuff said. -- Glenn Connery, Bell Northern Research, Mountain View, CA {hplabs,amdahl,3comvax}!bnrmtv!connery