NT 4.0 Bogs Down on Cyrix 6x86

Dave Andrews

In testing the final-release candidate of NT Workstation 4.0, BYTE discovered a performance discrepancy when running the software on a Cyrix 6x86-based PC. While running the BAPCo SYSmark/32 suite of 32-bit Windows applications, we noticed a slowdown of 31 percent in the final version of NT 4.0 that was released to manufacturing, compared to the previous release candidate. In both cases, BYTE tested NT on the same PC, which uses the Cyrix 6x86-P200+ running at 150 MHz ( see the charts ).

Intel-based PCs running the same NT beta software did not exhibit such a performance decrease from one NT be ta to the next. Additionally, NT 4.0 running on the same Pentium system ran the SYSmark/32 applications suite an average of 30 percent faster than NT 3.51, and 12 percent faster than Windows 95. Pentium Pros ran NT 4.0 26 percent faster than NT 3.51, and 28 percent faster than Win 95. The Cyrix 6x86, on the other hand, ran NT 4.0 16 percent slower than NT 3.51, and 24 percent slower than Win 95.

Microsoft added code to NT to change the way it runs on Cyrix-based PCs. Phil Holden, a product manager in Microsoft's Desktop & Business Systems Division, confirmed these changes were made to make NT more stable on the Cyrix platform. This may be the source of the application's performance slowdown. BYTE will have a full report next month.

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NT 4.0 SYSmark/32 Performance

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