T23 - sufficient for software developers?

Just wondering what anyone's opinion is as to how suitable a T23 (1.13GHz P3, 256MB PC 133 RAM) would be for software development, particularily using Visual Studio 2003 and Eclipse?

Will these run so slowly as to be unuseable?

I plan on upping the RAM to 512MB (or maybe even 1024.. ).. where can I find PC 133 SD-RAM for cheap (in Canada, or from somewhere that will ship to Canada)

Thanks.

 

A 1.13 P3 should handle VS fine.

Compiling will be SLOW.

As long as you upgrade RAM, VS will be good. Otherwise, it'll drag.

Myself, I'd go for 768MB. That's the sweet spot, IMO, and you can easily go to 1024 by swapping one module.

 

I have run VS 2003 FW 1.1 on a 950MHz P3 with 256MB RAM. It was quite slow, but ran OK without crashing. So your config should be fine too, but you should not probably expect blazing fast speed. For occassional computing/build it should be fine.

Eclipse is something else again ... needs tons of space to run. And it gets slower with time if you have it running for too long. I have no idea why this happens. BEA Workshop 8.1 is much more well-behaved.

 

A faster hard drive will help system performance.

 

It is more than enough for typing the code, as above stated get a faster drive to load the thing quicker, and as far as compile goes, there is not much difference between top P3 and mid PM, maybe 40% at most. RAM and HD will make the difference though.

 

I upgraded a T22 not too long ago with a 7200RPM drive. Performance was quite good.

 

A T23 is limited to 512MB total memory, you can purchase 2 256MB dimms for around $100 or less. Just a heads up there is different types of SDRAM, high density and low density, and a lot of Laptops have problems if you dont use the right ones. Double check and make sure the modules are supported in that laptop. I have an old T20 I carry around and works well with 512MB of memory.

 

The T22 has a limit of 512MB of memory. The T23s limit is 1GB.