[ale] Performance

[Christopher Fowler]

I've got an AMD 1.2GHZ machine and I'm looking to upgrade it to get
better performance.  The main problem I have is with compiling our
software.  It is just taking too long and I want to make the process
faster.

Disk Performance:

[root at cfowler cfowler]# hdparm -tT /dev/hdb

/dev/hdb:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  1.01 seconds =126.73 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  1.37 seconds = 46.72 MB/sec

Will getting at AMD 2400+ make a huge difference in compile times?
Obviously when compiling software some I/O is invloved on the disks.