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From: fredex@cg-atla.UUCP (Fred Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.att
Subject: Re: How effective is a V30 on an XT (8086) clone?
Message-ID: <8271@cg-atla.UUCP>
Date: 19 Jan 90 17:05:25 GMT
References: <19163@netnews.upenn.edu>
Reply-To: fredex@cg-atla.UUCP (Fred Smith)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Agfa Compugraphic Division
Lines: 36

In article <19163@netnews.upenn.edu> tony@scotty.dccs.upenn.edu (Anthony Olejnik) writes:
>I have an AT&T 6300 (8086 based XT clone) that I would like to speed up.
>I presently get a performance index of 1.8 (as determined by using
>Norton Utilities' System Information program - si.com).
>
>I'm thinking about replacing the 8086 with a V30 chip.  The ads that I've
>seen claim an "up to 30%" speed increase.
>
>Is this really the case?  Will I get a performance index of (1.8 x 130%) 
>2.34?
>  


Well, if you are using Norton's SI for your performance testing, be
aware that itis a lousy test of cpu speed. For example, I have a 
10Mhz XT clone which originally had an 8088, and SI said a computing
index of 2.1. When I replaced the 8088 with a 10Mhz V20 SI 
gave a computing index of 4.1. There is no way that a V20 is TWICE
as fast as an 8088 in overall performance.

I have run a number of other benchmark programs on my machine, and
most of them indicate that it is 5-20% faster, depending on
the particular benchmark, with the V20. However, a V20/V30 chip
is really inexpensive, so it is probably the cheapest 5-20% performance
boost you can find!

I found that it is enough faster that many games which were intended
to run ona CGA will run just fine on my Hercules clone along with
SIMCGA to fake the CGA. With the 8088 SIMCGA used up enough of the
cpu that many of those games were too draggy to bother with. Now
they tend to run just fine.

My machine is around 2/3 of an AT (performance-wise) with the V20,
so it certainly was worth the twelve bucks to me!

Fred