I'm curious if anybody has put together a chart comparing various OS's and CPU's... Particularly Windoze flavors on cpu's from p200 up to current procs. But info on BSD and Linux would be nice too...
Is there a performance chart for cpu's / OS's?
- Thread starter DurocShark
- Start date
What sort of "performance" did you want measured? You can't just give a number to describe how an entire OS does on a CPU.
In general you can look at the instructions per clock measurement of a CPU to get an idea of how well it works compared clock-for-clock with others, but you also have to keep in mind that lower IPC allows higher clock speeds, as we see with the P4, and newer generations might have the same IPC but be designed to allow higher clocks. So a P4 at 1GHz would obviously perform less well than a P3 1GHz, but you can't get a 3GHz P3.
Generally, newer CPUs would perform better, because new CPUs have a higher maximum speed, but on a clock for clock basis it could vary considerably. The performance of Linux or BSD compared to Windows (depending on how you define performance) will pretty much always be better, simply because they're cleaner code and better optimized. Which CPU is used shouldn't make much difference when comparing just the OS (like comparing Linux and Windows on a P3, and Linux and Windows on a P4), since the OS itself doesn't use anything but the basic x86 instructions. The CPU itself will perform exactly the same in both cases, and it'd be up to the coding of the software to determine the performance. Proper comparisons don't ever have more than one variable, so comparing Windows on a P3 to Linux on a P4 is not a valid way to do it.
In general you can look at the instructions per clock measurement of a CPU to get an idea of how well it works compared clock-for-clock with others, but you also have to keep in mind that lower IPC allows higher clock speeds, as we see with the P4, and newer generations might have the same IPC but be designed to allow higher clocks. So a P4 at 1GHz would obviously perform less well than a P3 1GHz, but you can't get a 3GHz P3.
Generally, newer CPUs would perform better, because new CPUs have a higher maximum speed, but on a clock for clock basis it could vary considerably. The performance of Linux or BSD compared to Windows (depending on how you define performance) will pretty much always be better, simply because they're cleaner code and better optimized. Which CPU is used shouldn't make much difference when comparing just the OS (like comparing Linux and Windows on a P3, and Linux and Windows on a P4), since the OS itself doesn't use anything but the basic x86 instructions. The CPU itself will perform exactly the same in both cases, and it'd be up to the coding of the software to determine the performance. Proper comparisons don't ever have more than one variable, so comparing Windows on a P3 to Linux on a P4 is not a valid way to do it.
I guess I wasn't clear enough...
Each CPU has a "sweet spot" where it performs best under certain conditions. A 486DX4-120 will spank a Pentium 120 in old DOS apps that can't use the Pentium. But load up a 32bit os like Windows 95, and the 486 just can't keep up.
I'm looking to see how say a p200mmx will run in win98 compared to winXP. (Assuming XP will even install on that proc.)
Then then same thing for a PII 233, 400, and so on and so on and so on...
I guess some simple test that will run in all OS's would be ideal...
Each CPU has a "sweet spot" where it performs best under certain conditions. A 486DX4-120 will spank a Pentium 120 in old DOS apps that can't use the Pentium. But load up a 32bit os like Windows 95, and the 486 just can't keep up.
I'm looking to see how say a p200mmx will run in win98 compared to winXP. (Assuming XP will even install on that proc.)
Then then same thing for a PII 233, 400, and so on and so on and so on...
I guess some simple test that will run in all OS's would be ideal...
IMO, what make the biggest difference is the amount of RAM you have.
Let's say you have 256 MB, you should be able to run WinXP, Linux/X/KDE, Win2K, etc just fine, as long as you turn off the fancy features(transparency, smooth scrolling, etc).
If you have 64 MB of RAM though, I'd stay with Win98(actually I'd get a new box, but that's not what you're asking
)
In day to day usage, the CPU will rarely limit you, until you get into media/game apps, in which case the OS wont matter much.
Let's say you have 256 MB, you should be able to run WinXP, Linux/X/KDE, Win2K, etc just fine, as long as you turn off the fancy features(transparency, smooth scrolling, etc).
If you have 64 MB of RAM though, I'd stay with Win98(actually I'd get a new box, but that's not what you're asking
)In day to day usage, the CPU will rarely limit you, until you get into media/game apps, in which case the OS wont matter much.
Me? I don;t care. I set my price and do a bit of research and by the best damn equipment I can within my budget. Generally this involves nvidia and amd... Memory is great, it makes things go fast. If you have enough so that your computer doesn't run with any info in the swap file/partition is were it's at. If it is using the swap space then you would be better of spending your money on more ram then cpu. But if it is not using swap space no matter what you do, then cpu would increase speeds more. DDR is great, too. So is high bus speeds. So get a nice motherboard, with fast ddr bus and get the fastest cpu you can within your budget. Make you budget first. I am going to spend 400 dollars, or 700 dollars, or 8000 dollars first. Whatever, then divide up between the motherboard, ram, and cpu. Frankly harddisks are fairly worthless for increasing speed much. May increase programming start up time, but after everything gets loaded into RAM then it's irrevelent.
Linux responds to more RAM then Windows does quite a bit more. It can handle it better; thats why. Especially win9X's. it's pointless to go much over 256 with win98 IMO.
BTW that tomshardware chart is nice comparision.
Linux responds to more RAM then Windows does quite a bit more. It can handle it better; thats why. Especially win9X's. it's pointless to go much over 256 with win98 IMO.
BTW that tomshardware chart is nice comparision.
Yeah it was...
I was just considering slapping XP onto my 233mhz iOpener, and that got me thinking about the low power machines I see every so often. I thought SOMEONE would have found what kind of performance hit a p233 would take going from 98se to XP. I *know* that XP has more overhead, but how much more? That sort of thing...
Thanks for the replies all!
Run a pair of WD Raptors in RAID 0 and tell me if they are worthless for increasing speed. They have created a much faster feeling computer under XP. In my opinion the Raptors contribute much more than my OC from 1.47 to 2GHz or my upgrade from 512MB RAM to 1GB. I was just referring to everyday tasks above, if you ever do any audio/ video editing or graphics work you will really see how much HDs help.
That happened with a 120GB array of 2 IBM 60GXPs. The array was almost full, but luckily I had everything "important" backed up. I am hoping the Raptors are a little more reliable. Besides, if my HD was to fail anyway, I would lose everything.
Realy? how much money you spent on those guys? 300+ with the raid card.. (if you needed the card I guess.) I'd rather have the new Barton cpu or a nice video card personally. But that's just me. Of course if I could have both the nice cpu and the RAID then I would pick that.
I guess I was think more of a budget PC. If push came to shove I would choose the faster CPU and RAM over the nice harddrive most every time.Harddrive makes a big diffrence specially in videoediting. Ram is also important. Depending on conditions one is more important then the other. If you got extremly low ram then upgrading the ram would be better. Ofcourse upgrading both is the best
Ex. Two machines with same ram lets say 512mb and same harddrive 7200rpm. If you upgrade one of the machines to 1gb ram and the second machines harddisk to 10000rpm you will see bigger diffrence in videoediting performance in favor of the one that upgraded the HD.
Ex. Two machines with same ram lets say 512mb and same harddrive 7200rpm. If you upgrade one of the machines to 1gb ram and the second machines harddisk to 10000rpm you will see bigger diffrence in videoediting performance in favor of the one that upgraded the HD.
Ya, I suppose you guys are right. For what I use the computer for is mainly playing games, watching tv, internet, and 2-d art stuff is heavily dependant on fast ram and cpu, were the harddrive is only read once of a while when programs start up, since I have enough ram so that I don't use the swap space. Of course now that I think about it, upgrading from my ancient 6 gig'r to my decent WD 80 gig harddrive did a world of difference for start up times on quake.
But how I look at, generally, I am willing to sacrifice a faster harddrive(s) for much more RAM. Even the fastest HD is a thousand times slower then the slowest RAM (pretty much) upgrading HD is not going to have much of a impact on performance if you have to use the swap constantly vs keeping all the program up in main memory.
Maybe I can revise my statement. Instead of saying faster harddrive is worthless for increasing performance, exept when starting up programs. I should say: That unless you have enough RAM to keep all your programs out of swap and happy, a fast enough proccessor to use all that RAM and a fast bus to provide a speedy connection between the two, you'd be better off not spending a gob of money on the fastest HD setup and put it into other componates of your system, unless you do a lot of video editing or anything else that is highly dependant on streaming I/O information out of your storage systems, like maintaining databases or file servers.
But how I look at, generally, I am willing to sacrifice a faster harddrive(s) for much more RAM. Even the fastest HD is a thousand times slower then the slowest RAM (pretty much) upgrading HD is not going to have much of a impact on performance if you have to use the swap constantly vs keeping all the program up in main memory.
Maybe I can revise my statement. Instead of saying faster harddrive is worthless for increasing performance, exept when starting up programs. I should say: That unless you have enough RAM to keep all your programs out of swap and happy, a fast enough proccessor to use all that RAM and a fast bus to provide a speedy connection between the two, you'd be better off not spending a gob of money on the fastest HD setup and put it into other componates of your system, unless you do a lot of video editing or anything else that is highly dependant on streaming I/O information out of your storage systems, like maintaining databases or file servers.
Realy? I was wondering about that. The difference between SCSI and IDE still seem pretty severe sometimes, but in other times it doesn't seem like a big deal.
My ancient 486-based (with pentium overdrive upgrade to 89mhz, baby) SCSI'd compaq Proliant can run circles around my new AthlonXP/80gig (abiet a budget/slower model of HD). The IDE and SCSI harddrives both turn at the same speed, but the IDE's thoroughput is just non-existant compared to the ancient 2.1 gig scsis, plus I don't even have them raided.
My ancient 486-based (with pentium overdrive upgrade to 89mhz, baby) SCSI'd compaq Proliant can run circles around my new AthlonXP/80gig (abiet a budget/slower model of HD). The IDE and SCSI harddrives both turn at the same speed, but the IDE's thoroughput is just non-existant compared to the ancient 2.1 gig scsis, plus I don't even have them raided.
The pair of Raptors cost a little under $300. I have 1GB of RAM which most people would consider plenty. The upgrade from a 60GB IBM 60GXP to a single Raptor was huge. The upgrade from a single Raptor to dual was noticable and nice, but not as big of a deal. I think the Raptor can rival most SCSI in performance for less cost. Still, if I had the money the choice would be 15,000 RPM SCSI.
My dope-glasses are preventing me from seeing where the Intel P4 1.6A falls onto that list on the
Comparison Table.
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