486-100 with 48MB ram...overkill?
Joe
Hi,
A buddy here is running an AMD 486-100 with 48...yes 48MB of RAM.
I say it's total overkill and he should sell/trade 16meg and buy a
Pentium motherboard and Pentium-class CPU. He swears the DX4 with the
additional RAM will run just as fast. I say the 32MB with a
Pentium class will be faster for most applications.
Who is correct?
Joe
Neal Zimmers
Joe, I would tend to agree with you. I feel rather confident that a P90
or P100 with just 16 MB Ram would perform above the AMD-100 with 48 MB
RAM.
I'm not positive, but on most systems (running windows 95) the most gain
from RAM starts to level out around 12-16 MB. From there the marginal
benifit decreases somewhat.
I once had intel 486-100 overdrive, and a buddy of mine still has a
AMD-100 with 16 MB of RAM. Both systems performed at about the same
level, but a Pentium would beat them both hands down.
Either way, 48 MB of Ram isn't too ludicrous, I just moved to 64 myself!
d
Eponymity
In article <330594...@ece.org>, Neal Zimmers <nzim...@ece.org> wrote:
} Joe wrote:
} >
} > Hi,
} > A buddy here is running an AMD 486-100 with 48...yes 48MB of RAM.
} > I say it's total overkill and he should sell/trade 16meg and buy a
} > Pentium motherboard and Pentium-class CPU. He swears the DX4 with the
} > additional RAM will run just as fast. I say the 32MB with a
} > Pentium class will be faster for most applications.
} >
} > Who is correct?
16 MB of used RAM is worth about $60 max. A new Pentium motherboard
and even a clone Pentium is worth at least $200. You aren't comparing
apples to apples here. What he *could* do, if his motherboard would
support it, is put in a 5x86-133. That would be the smartest thing,
as it would move him close to P90 performance for only around $40.
} Joe, I would tend to agree with you. I feel rather confident that a P90
} or P100 with just 16 MB Ram would perform above the AMD-100 with 48 MB
} RAM.
Depends entirely on what the system is doing. The raw processing power
of a P90 is only about 50% more than a 486/100, and 48MB means a lot
fewer disk accesses than 16 MB. Swapping is what really kills performance.
} I'm not positive, but on most systems (running windows 95) the most gain
} from RAM starts to level out around 12-16 MB. From there the marginal
} benifit decreases somewhat.
I noticed a major performance increase going to 32 MB on Win 95.
cheers,
-*-
charles
sLuNk
Neal Zimmers wrote:
>
> Joe wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> > A buddy here is running an AMD 486-100 with 48...yes 48MB of RAM.
> > I say it's total overkill and he should sell/trade 16meg and buy a
> > Pentium motherboard and Pentium-class CPU. He swears the DX4 with the
> > additional RAM will run just as fast. I say the 32MB with a
> > Pentium class will be faster for most applications.
> >
> > Who is correct?
> >
>
> Joe, I would tend to agree with you. I feel rather confident that a P90
> or P100 with just 16 MB Ram would perform above the AMD-100 with 48 MB
> RAM.
>
> from RAM starts to level out around 12-16 MB. From there the marginal
> benifit decreases somewhat.
>
> AMD-100 with 16 MB of RAM. Both systems performed at about the same
> level, but a Pentium would beat them both hands down.
>
> Either way, 48 MB of Ram isn't too ludicrous, I just moved to 64 myself!
>
> d
Neal Zimmers
> } I'm not positive, but on most systems (running windows 95) the most gain
> } from RAM starts to level out around 12-16 MB. From there the marginal
> } benifit decreases somewhat.
>
Hope I didn't sound like I was saying that after 16 MB there is no
benifit. Indeed there would be a definite performance advantage to 32
over 16 MB. I even noticed a that the shift to 64 from 32 MB brought
quite a bit more performance to my system.
The more RAM, the better, eh?
nz
Joe
> } > A buddy here is running an AMD 486-100 with 48...yes 48MB of RAM.
> } > I say it's total overkill and he should sell/trade 16meg and buy a
> } > Pentium motherboard and Pentium-class CPU. He swears the DX4 with the
> } > additional RAM will run just as fast. I say the 32MB with a
> } > Pentium class will be faster for most applications.
> } >
> } > Who is correct?
>
> and even a clone Pentium is worth at least $200. You aren't comparing
> apples to apples here. What he *could* do, if his motherboard would
> support it, is put in a 5x86-133. That would be the smartest thing,
> as it would move him close to P90 performance for only around $40.
Curious how a 33Mhz bus clocked "by four" will perform. Wont a Pentium
50Mhz bus "by two" work faster?
He's going to go and try to find a 5x86-133. If he cant find
one for $40, the 486 CPU, Motherboard, and 16MB of RAM are going to be
swapped
for a P100 and cheap motherboard (and then load it with the 32MB that
he's keeping). I figure 16MB = $50 bucks, Motherboard = $60, CPU = $35
-- that's
getting close to a very low-end Pentium MB and CPU.
Almost unanimous that the P100 w/32MB blows away the AMD 486DX4 w/48MB
ram.
Thanks for the input,
Joe
JNavas1
FWIW, the 486DX4 is not a "four [4]" times processor. The AMD 5x86 133 is,
and can generally be overclocked to 160MHz (set local bus to 40MHz). Then
the AMD 5x86 133 will operate at the speed of a P-100.
Jim Navas
Dan Oglesby
The AMD 5x86-133 has a P-rating equivalent to a Pentium 75 when it's set to run
at 33bus x 4clock. It is true that you can overclock this chip to 160Mhz and
increase the overall speed, such as the P-rating, to the equivalent of a
Pentium 100. This does not mean that all software will run the same as a
Pentium 100. Pentium optimized software probably won't run as fast on the AMD
5x86-133 as it would on a Pentium 100 even if you overclock the AMD to 160Mhz.
Benchmarks are one thing, real performance with an application designed for use
on Pentiums is another.
--
Dan Oglesby
SVM Computer Help Desk, Purdue University
da...@vet.purdue.edu
JNavas1 <jna...@aol.com> wrote in article
<19970217181...@ladder01.news.aol.com>...
Eponymity
In article <330915...@transend.com.tw>,
Joe <joe...@transend.com.tw> wrote:
} > } > A buddy here is running an AMD 486-100 with 48...yes 48MB of RAM.
} > } > I say it's total overkill and he should sell/trade 16meg and buy a
} > } > Pentium motherboard and Pentium-class CPU. He swears the DX4 with the
} > } > additional RAM will run just as fast. I say the 32MB with a
} > } > Pentium class will be faster for most applications.
} > } >
} > } > Who is correct?
} >
} > 16 MB of used RAM is worth about $60 max. A new Pentium motherboard
} > and even a clone Pentium is worth at least $200. You aren't comparing
} > apples to apples here. What he *could* do, if his motherboard would
} > support it, is put in a 5x86-133. That would be the smartest thing,
} > as it would move him close to P90 performance for only around $40.
}
} Curious how a 33Mhz bus clocked "by four" will perform. Wont a Pentium
} 50Mhz bus "by two" work faster?
Well of course, but at a much higher cost.
} He's going to go and try to find a 5x86-133. If he cant find
} one for $40, the 486 CPU, Motherboard, and 16MB of RAM are going to be
} swapped
} for a P100 and cheap motherboard (and then load it with the 32MB that
} he's keeping). I figure 16MB = $50 bucks, Motherboard = $60, CPU = $35
} -- that's
} getting close to a very low-end Pentium MB and CPU.
Well if you can actually get $95 for a used DX4-100 and an old (non-PCI
I assume?) 486 motherboard, I'd do it. You won't get that much from me :)
} Almost unanimous that the P100 w/32MB blows away the AMD 486DX4 w/48MB
} ram.
I'd agree with this as well.
cheers,
-*-
charles
Mike Greaves
sLuNk wrote:
>
> Neal Zimmers wrote:
> >
> > Joe wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi,
> > > I say it's total overkill and he should sell/trade 16meg and buy a
> > > Pentium motherboard and Pentium-class CPU. He swears the DX4 with the
> A P90 or P100 w/16 megs of RAM would KILL a DX4/100 w/48 megs
You CAN'T make sweeping statements like this! A lightweight Windows
desktop system doesn't need more than 16 MB and, for that case,
a P90 with only 16 MB is definitely much faster.
On the other hand, I run systems (PC Unix or NT based) which sometimes
process dozens of MB of data in RAM at once. One of these applications
would BURY A DUAL PENTIUM PRO if it only had 16 MB of RAM!
These systems cry for 64 MB or even 128 MB (hope to get this much
soon). A 486DX33 (YES! Only 33 MHz!) with 64 MB of RAM can beat a Dual
PPro with 16 MB of RAM if the PPro system's physical RAM is swamped and
it's grinding away at the poor hard disk, trying to cope by using
virtual memory. Virtual memory is slower than physical memory by
(approaching) a factor of 100! If you're swapping heavily to disk, then
the RAM and disk I/O parameters of your system totally control your
system's performance.
RAM doesn't give you ANY speed. What it does is PREVENT THE
CATASTROPHIC LOSS OF SPEED that occurs when physical memeory runs out
and swapping becomes prevalent. In other words, it makes your system
INSENSITIVE TO LOAD. This is why servers and other heavily loaded
systems are usually stuffed with RAM. And if physical RAM isn't running
out? Then a P100 is basically twice as fast as a 486DX4-100. A dual
PPro is (potentially, depending on 2nd CPU utilization) more than 20
times faster than a 486DX33, unless the PPro runs out of physical RAM
much earlier and then, the 486 could actually win.
BTW, I don't usually capitalize so much. Peace.
Mike Greaves
mgre...@pathcom.com
Joe
JNavas1 wrote:
>
> FWIW, the 486DX4 is not a "four [4]" times processor. The AMD 5x86 133 is,
> and can generally be overclocked to 160MHz (set local bus to 40MHz). Then
> the AMD 5x86 133 will operate at the speed of a P-100.
> Jim Navas
Thanks for the correction. Goodnight Mrs. Crabapple.
While we are on semantics, FWIW, a 133 Mhz chips can NEVER run at the
same "speed" as a 100 Mhz chip. There's a 33 million cycles per second
difference in speed. Sure, the amount of time needed to process the
data might be the same, but this is due to wider throughput, not faster
clocking.
all that and I'm an accountant !
Joe
G. Herrmannsfeldt
I have a program that goes through a large matrix alternately by rows and
columns. It it has to swap, it just dies.
It makes many passes through the matrix, too.
I have run it with the matrix over 16Mbytes on a 5x86 with 32MB.
-- glen
Joe
> Well if you can actually get $95 for a used DX4-100 and an old (non-PCI
> I assume?) 486 motherboard, I'd do it. You won't get that much from me
Got $95 bucks for the DX4 CPU, and the 486 PCI motherboard (4 ide slots,
4 PCI slots, integrated 16550UART I/O). Of course, that's not in
the USA either so your mileage may vary.
thanks,
Joe
Antonio Ferraro
Eponymity wrote:
>
> In article <330594...@ece.org>, Neal Zimmers <nzim...@ece.org> wrote:
> } Joe wrote:
> } >
> } > Hi,
> } > A buddy here is running an AMD 486-100 with 48...yes 48MB of RAM.
> } > I say it's total overkill and he should sell/trade 16meg and buy a
> } > Pentium motherboard and Pentium-class CPU. He swears the DX4 with the
> } > Pentium class will be faster for most applications.
> } >
> } > Who is correct?
>
> 16 MB of used RAM is worth about $60 max. A new Pentium motherboard
> and even a clone Pentium is worth at least $200. You aren't comparing
> apples to apples here. What he *could* do, if his motherboard would
> support it, is put in a 5x86-133. That would be the smartest thing,
> as it would move him close to P90 performance for only around $40.
>
I agree with you, in fact I did exactly what you suggested plus I
overclocked the AMD 5x86 to 160 (motherboard speed from 33 to 40 Mhz)
and the system now performs just like a Pentium 100 (I benchmarked using
at first the raw landmark and then winbench). I've 20 M of RAM and I've
being using this configuration for 5 months now. I'm extremely pleased
with it.
Cheers
Antonio