Typical PC Guy question - and request for RFB contacts

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I, having very little AS400/iseries experience am in charge of our current 
AS400.  I understand fully the impact in performance when I talk in Megahertz, 
RAM, etc. and have learned a decent amount of IBM lingo, DASD, main memory, 
CPW, etc.

My question is this .  .our third pary vendor recently made a needed change to 
our administrative software which has our current system at its needs.  We are 
a higher ed. institution and we have students waiting 3-4 minutes for fees to 
process.

Our current machine is a model 600-2129 , 22.7 SHARED CPW, 192 main mem. and 
12G DASD.

I am looking at a refurb 170-2291, 115/25 CPW, 512 main mem and 17G DASD.

Disk space is not an issue for me . .the ONLY thing this box is used for is 
this ONE third party app (no web, mail, storage, etc).  I have been told that 
this 170 config will push me to the top of the P05 group (don't want to go P10 
for budgetary reasons).

My questions are this:

1. What kind of performance increase am I looking at generically.  I know you 
can't give me exact figures, but in generic terms, are we talking about moving 
from a 386 to a pentium here?  maybe better?  I have some performance figures 
on this box . .but i'm really not interested in specifics . .just trying to get 
an overall feel for CPW ratings and the difference they make.

2. I need to bid out this project (the hardware, license transfer and data 
move).  If you handle this type of thing, please send me your contact 
information, including name, address, phone, fax and email.

Sincerely,

Anthony Hardy
Director of MIS/Enrollment Management
Jefferson Davis Community College
(251) 809-1531
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