i've seen a review of the guru plug that claimed that for network workload, this 1.2GHz ARM is not really faster than an ALIX board with a 500MHz AMD Geode and two 100MBit ethernet iterfaces, while running so hot that you cannot touch the ethernet plugs while it is idling.
[Edit:] it is the "Guruplug: don't waste your money" article that is the top result if you ask google for "guruplug alix". And netxt time I buy a phone with copy & paste support, I swear.
The heat seems to be a design issue - he mentions the bus being only 16 bits wide. I'd hate to think ARM chips don't scale up after all...
Here's performance numbers from a "SheevaPlug". Seems about half the power of an equivalent intel CPU, but its floating point performance is about 1/35 (like, really bad; no hardware FP). File serving isn't FP intensive though. Around about a "P3 800Mhz". http://computingplugs.com/index.php/SheevaPlug_Performance
[Edit:] it is the "Guruplug: don't waste your money" article that is the top result if you ask google for "guruplug alix". And netxt time I buy a phone with copy & paste support, I swear.