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Comparative CPU Benchmarks From 1995 to 2004
Lux writes "The guys over at Tom's Hardware Guide have been busy recently! They've compared over a hundred different architectures dating all the way back to the Pentium 1 in one huge benchmarking effort. Looking to upgrade an older system? Unlike most benchmarks, which compare modern systems to other modern systems, these charts can help you figure out if the cost of upgrading is worth the speedup or if you should hold off for a bit longer."
Artificial benchmarks tend to exaggerate minor differences in speed that aren't noticable or relevant in human time.
The best analysis of whether you should upgrade is a subjective one. Sit down at the computer. Does it do what you want or not?
Benchmarks tell me my Radeon 9800 is horribly out of date and imply its too weak to play any modern games. But I know from experience, that's bullshit.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
They must've dropped them on the road on the way to the benchmarking lab. :(
A 487 math co-processor will turn it into (almost) an equivelant pentium.
Actually a 486+487 still has enough juice for a homebrewed linux firewall/router, and you can get boards with chips for a buck in the throwaway bin at my local computer shop.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Clock speed != performance, no matter what the Blue Man Group might want you to think.
Why did they use an 8mb video card for the older motherboards that don't support AGP?
Matrox Mystique G170
Memory: 8 MB SD-G-RAM
They should use the fastest availible video card if they are testing CPU speed. My 200mhz pentium pro with a 16mb TNT card ran Quake 3.
While it might be an interesting exercise, I think it's well beyond the scope of this article. The focus is clearly on personal computers, and the (by-far) dominant architecture we've had on our desks over the past 10 years.
While the slashdot crowd might find such a benchmark informative, the general Tom's HWG user probably would not.
Dual processor is very, very useful. Even for lowly non-server use.
You see, I have a dual cpu system, and for the longest time I thought XP must be the most stable windows OS evar!
Turns out the OS never really crashes because there's always a cpu left to bring up the ctrl-alt-del screen with, so you can kill all the OS processes on the other CPU that DID crash..
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
Well, it is if you're running DOS 6.xx + Win3.x or 95. Namely full 32-bit support, native multitasking, better VM; over all, far better tools to work with under Linux than older offerings. Just comes down to what you are wanting to do.
I still use an old P5-133 w/ 80MB just to do general doc writing and such. I've got it working plenty fast with Mandrake 9.
-What have you contributed lately?
It's important to note the subjectivity factor in benchmark measurements. Too much focus is put the raw numbers, though that's easy for the marketing folks. There's a good column by economist Alfonzo Wallings that covers this kind of thing (Forbes I think, don't have the URL on me at the moment).
But I'm talking to a bunch of gamers for whom that last 0.4% performance boost is worth more than a hot cheerleader full of X.
These are the same people that get into squabbles over which display adapter is better when A gets 150FPS (frames per second) and B gets 140FPS but with better double-dodecahedron rendering or whatever. It makes no difference to them that most human eyes cannot distinguish between 40FPS and 80FPS, let alone anything above 100. However, if the [abstract and wholly meaningless number] is higher then the product must be better. Oh, well - at least the cheerleaders are safe.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.