Re: Thoughts on the 560 "Kite"

[Randy Whittle <whittle@usc.edu>]

At 10:48 AM 8/27/96 EDT, Robert Dewar wrote:
>thanks Randy for your long and detailed review, one point:
>
>"        AVAILABILITY:  The P120 w/ 810 MB HD isn't too hard to find.  The
>P133 w/ 1.05 GB HD is impossible to find.  I chose the P120 route because I
>figured its only about 10% slower in the CPU (not a big issue for me,
>especially moving up from a 486-75), the 1.05 GB still wasn't as big as I
>*really* wanted (while the 810 MB was still a bit bigger than I currently
>have in my 701, so I figured it could still suit my needs with the use of"
>
>I wonder if this calculation is right. I have been quite surprised to find
>that my 133MHz Tecra is well over twice as fast as my 90MHz 760CD. The
>one benchmark I saw showed the 133MHz thinkpad as slightly faster than the
>Tecra, so let's assume that it is at least *as* fast.

        One thing I just finished mentioning to John Kim via private mail
was that upon using Norton Utils (for Win 95) benchmark, my 560 with a
Pentium 120 shows to be somewhat slower than a (presumably, desktop) Pentium
90.  Of course, that irks the hell out of me, but...

        Meanwhile, the same benchmark shows my 701, with a 486-75 MHz CPU,
as a fair amount slower than a (presumably desktop) 486-33 too.  I don't
know if the benchmark is being unfair, or if these thinkpads are really just
way too damn slow!

        At any rate, whatever malady slows down the 560, I'm sure its
universal across CPU's in the 560 series.  Hence, if the 560 with a P120 is
somewhat slow, a 560 with a P133 is probably somewhat slower than it should
be too.

        By the way, that 10% figure I gave is based only on a little
math--assuming all else is equal, the difference between 120 MHz and 133 MHz
is 10.833% (actually should be rounded up to about 11%).  Based solely on
that, I didn't figure its worth quibbling over as far as making a purchase,
especially when availability is a bit more important to me.

>That means that I am seeing something other than raw MHz speed of the 
>processor (disk and memory are comparable).

        Quite true.

        But this is why different makes of the same basic CPU benchmark at
different speeds.  Among notebooks, ThinkPads have historically been
mediocre performers for their CPU class.  Virtually never the fastest, but
usually not the slowest either.

-------
Randy Whittle		rwhittle@usa.net
USC Graduate School of Business    http://www-scf.usc.edu/~whittle