[svlug] Upgrades

[Javilk]

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svlug at svlug.com

   I am glad I am not the only one who makes these kinds of errors...


Subject: Re: [svlug] New Computer
To: rick at hugin.imat.com (Rick Moen)
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 17:54:21 -0800 (PST)
Cc: marc_merlin at magic.metawire.com, svlug at svlug.com

> The trick is, though, that comparing chips' performance at the same 
> clock speed can be misleading, if (as is the case here) there's a
> substantial price difference.

    The slowest part of your computer is the disk head -- seeking takes
time, especially if you have swap and temp on the same drive.  I have seen
a 486 DX 50 with 16 meg beat a 32 meg 100mhz Silicon Graphics Indy
consistently _when_ it came to disk intensive tasks.  And vice versa on
non-disk intensive tasks.  The 486 just had a faster, newer hard drive,
that is all.  Disk speed and layout is vital for speed. Before you buy
that extra pricy CPU, get a second disk drive for use as swap ONLY. If you
don't swap much, then put your /tmp files on it, or add an /aux drive, so
you can process from one drive to another drive -- it can double your
speed and then some.  (And for the layout department, not all tasks are
faster on databases, which often have to do indexed seeks.  If your index
is cached, that isn't that bad, but on a long series of items, a sorted
flat file _may_ give you faster results with some kinds of data.) 

     RAM speed won't change between processors.  Adding RAM will reduce
the use of SWAP.  So money spent on RAM can speed a processor a LOT in
many cases, simply by reducing swapping. SDRAM is a lot faster than the
old EDO RAM.  If you have the slots...

     Your processor is running choked on RAM most of the time. Unless you
are doing intensive math, (which a lot of graphics intensive games and
some applications do...)  you are not going to speed that part up much by
doubling your processor speed.  

> > That's not even mentioning the older Celeron CPUs, which are dog slow
> > because of the complete absence of second level cache.

     Cache can help speed some kinds of processes up.  But lots of things
require files, and for file intensive things, faster CPU will not
translate into speed gains as strongly as will upgrading your disk drive
to one with faster seek times and maybe faster rotational speed. 

> The new Celerons could be a real boon -- depending on pricing.  With
> its heat output and defective L2 cache, the old one made sense only
> on gamers' machines (because of strong FPU).

    Yes, games excepted.


- javilk at mall-net.com -----------------------------
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