Hello there,
well, I haven't seen any PC (up to AMD64 FX-62) which is able to work real SMOOTH in a Windows- or Linux-Environment. Of course, they work very fast, but every x86 stucks for some milliseconds if certain things happen: Harddisk-DMA (Windows is swapping the kernel again), incoming LAN-Packets, while the connection is not 100% stable (just waiting for the next ping), output to the printer via parallelport (good ol' IRQ7). You can't tell me that your PC does not, it's simply the architecture of the southbridge (which is still running periphal-communication with 33/66 MHz) and the northbridge which can't be run at full speed on most of the systems and the kernel swapping to HDD of all O/S. Of course the delay is minimal and many people today do not realize the short stuck anymore, coz they simply are used to it.
I don't blame the PC for beeing a PC, I just tell you that on the Amiga (even with connected Hard-Drive) you do not have this stucks. That's true for an Apple with G3 800Mhz, too. Or the Sony PSX1 and PS2 (ok, consoles, I know...) but not the x86 !
Well, I didn't test a Tyan-Board with four CPUs and extended PCI-Ports and about 64 GByte of Ram so far... too expensive, but it looks very promising, it could make it... as SERVER-CLASS.
Greeeeeez
NuPraptor