Pi vs Pentium 3 PC

[Hotaru]

Here is one of the PCs I use now.

CPU: Dual Pentium 3 600MHz SMP
RAM: 768MB PC100
NIC: 10/100 on PCI card, with WOL cable
USB: 1.1 on motherboard, 2.0 on PCI card
Audio: Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 DE on PCI card
Video: AGP 2X
HDD: PATA 7200rpm

I use this box for light server duty (DNS, LDAP, printing, etc.).

I am thinking about replacing it with a Raspberry Pi which would need less space and less energy than the PC. What can I expect the Pi's performance to be like compared to this PC?

[W. H. Heydt]

Here is one of the PCs I use now.

CPU: Dual Pentium 3 600MHz SMP
RAM: 768MB PC100
NIC: 10/100 on PCI card, with WOL cable
USB: 1.1 on motherboard, 2.0 on PCI card
Audio: Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 DE on PCI card
Video: AGP 2X
HDD: PATA 7200rpm

I use this box for light server duty (DNS, LDAP, printing, etc.).

I am thinking about replacing it with a Raspberry Pi which would need less space and less energy than the PC. What can I expect the Pi's performance to be like compared to this PC?

Without digging in too deeply, the Pi has 4 cores vs. your two separate chips. If I recall that memory correctly, the Pis RAM should be faster. A Pi3B has more memory, though some is used by the GPU. NIC is the same, but you'll lose WOL. USB is the same. The Pis video is probably at least on a par, though you don't specify what you've actually got for a display card. HDD comparison...hard to say. Do some transfer tests. With the right setup, a Pi can hit around 35MB/s.

On the whole for your uses, the video is really irrelevant. The Pi should be able to handle the rest pretty much as well as what you've got. More interesting than what you've listed would be to specify what OS the PC is running. If it's running MS Windows (Win95? 98? 98SE? XP?) Linux on the Pi should be better. If you're running Linux (or unix), what distro and release?

[runboy93]

Pi 3 beat my Pentium 4 atleast.

[Hotaru]

Here is one of the PCs I use now.
Without digging in too deeply, the Pi has 4 cores vs. your two separate chips. If I recall that memory correctly, the Pis RAM should be faster. A Pi3B has more memory, though some is used by the GPU. NIC is the same, but you'll lose WOL. USB is the same. The Pis video is probably at least on a par, though you don't specify what you've actually got for a display card. HDD comparison...hard to say. Do some transfer tests. With the right setup, a Pi can hit around 35MB/s.

On the whole for your uses, the video is really irrelevant. The Pi should be able to handle the rest pretty much as well as what you've got. More interesting than what you've listed would be to specify what OS the PC is running. If it's running MS Windows (Win95? 98? 98SE? XP?) Linux on the Pi should be better. If you're running Linux (or unix), what distro and release?

The video card is a S3 Savage 2000.

I use Debian 8 on this PC and on my main one (i7 930) as well. This gives me the extra advantage of being familiar with how to set up what I want to do on the Pi.

WOL shouldn't be much of a concern with the Pi's inherently low energy usage.