zerkle@iris.ucdavis.edu (Dan Zerkle) (03/02/91)
[ What? A benchmark in .advocacy? Is that in the charter? ]
Well, I finally went and bought 4 more megabytes of fast RAM for my
3000 (for $270). I installed it with my own two hands. Who says that
computer scientists can't do hardware?
Before, when I had just one megabyte of fast RAM, after KickStart,
Workbench, and my screen blanker loaded, there wasn't much fast RAM
left. Programs would load and run in the slower chip memory. Now,
they load completely in the fast memory, since there is plenty left.
I figured that this would improve the performance of my little
computer somewhat.
Here's a benchmark: I'm working on a program that evaluates game
trees using alpha-beta pruning. Moderately memory-intensive stuff, no
graphics, compiled under Aztec C with no interesting options.
With 1 meg of fast memory : 20 seconds
With 4 megs of fast memory : 8.5 seconds
This is obviously a big difference. Adding even one more megabyte of
fast RAM (for roughly $80) would mean that more of your programs would
load into the fast memory, for a very substantial speed gain. In
other words, there is a big difference between a stock 1+1 megabyte
machine and a 1+2 megabyte machine. Until the KickStart gets ROM'ed,
it might be a good idea to sell machines with one extra megabyte
(which, granted, can't be moved over to chip RAM).
Dan Zerkle zerkle@iris.eecs.ucdavis.edu (916) 754-0240
Amiga... Because life is too short for boring computers.