second thoughts on buying a 3000UX

[Scott Evernden]

In article <5PR9W6D at xds13.ferranti.com> peter at ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
>In article <1135 at applix.com> scotte at applix.UUCP (Scott Evernden) writes:
>> In the end, I decided to brew myself a 486/33 box. 
>
>Are you sure you got the better box? It's got more CPU than a 3000/25,

Yes.  Absolutely.  I spent a very long time making this decision.

>but unless the video RAM is on the motherboard and not going through the
>slow slow slow IBM-PC bus the overall system is likely to be slower for
>X work. Have you compared the X speed of the two boxes?

I dunno.  8 plane windows move around fast enough.  How quickly can
the 3000 blitter process 8 plane images?   :-)

>If anything, X is the big reason to go with the 3000 rather than a [34]86
>box.

If I spent all day just running X programs then the A3000 might make more
sense.  But, I spend all day compiling code.  I need max. disk and cpu
speed.  90% of the time graphics thruput contributes zip to my productivity.
The rest of the time, I'm maybe moving windows, which the 486 can do faster
on a 12MHz bus than the Amiga blitter on it's slow slow slow 7.14 MHz bus.

-scott