Windows ME vs 2000 / Pentium III vs IV ?

[Michael Clarke]

We have a considerable amount of PB/Dos code built up over the
years which we do not want to convert. Processing speed is very
important to us and we use the floating point processor heavily.
We currently are using 1000mhz Pentium IIIs and are thinking
about upgrading to 1500mhz Pentium IVs. Does anyone know if we
can expect 50% or more improvement in our execution times not
considering disk accessing. Also, are then any opinions on which
OS would be better; Windows ME or 2000? (Note: we also print
large amounts to the printer attached to the parallel port).

Thanks for any input.


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[keith d. shelton]

I personally would go with a 1.2Ghz Alathon from AMD. With a motherboard
using DDR Ram it is beating the pants off the P-IV's that are running at 1.5Ghz.
I have yet to read a report in a magazine that shows the P4 running faster.
In some instances the P4 is slower than a P3 running the same software.
Your best bet is to check out some of the tech magazines and compare
the specs for both. Also if you do a lot of printing, the faster the
printer you use the better off you are.
Keith Shelton

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[Eric Pearson]

> opinions on which OS would be better; Windows ME or 2000?

My first impulse is to say that Windows 2000 will be much more stable and "robust" than ME, and to point out that Windows ME is the end of the line for the 95/98/ME series. There will be no future versions.

But I'm not sure that those factors are important to you. In fact if you are looking for raw speed and you don't need multi-tasking, Windows 98 might be the best choice because it allows you to boot to DOS, which neither ME or 2000 allows. Heck, for that matter install DOS and forget about Windows.

Assuming that you want to be able to run two or more programs at the same time (or you need other things that Windows provides, like network support) I would lean toward Windows 2000, but I have never performed (or seen) benchmarks that compare DOS-app performance on those platforms. ME and 2000 provide support for DOS apps in completely different ways, so it's anybody's guess which would be faster. In a way, Windows ME is "closer" to DOS because parts of the OS are 16-bit.

I'm not even sure that "generic" benchmarks would be helpful to you. If I were in your shoes I'd buy the hardware and run my own benchmarks using ME and 2000, with the actual software that you will be using.

-- Eric


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[Gary Akins]

The Pentium-4 is a thoroughly screwed-up archetecture; you will not get any significant performance gain, and in fact are very likely to lose performance with any code that is not specifically optimized for that chip. (This site - Pentium 4: In Depth - has a very good, in-depth description of just how badly Intel blew it with this design.)

The Athlon Thunderbird series is, indeed, a far better chip for "legacy" code than the Pentium-4 is, especially if floating-point performance is important to your application.

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[This message has been edited by Gary Akins (edited April 24, 2001).]