[comp.sys.amiga] Recommendations needed ab

brian.cohen@canremote.uucp (BRIAN COHEN) (03/06/90)

Dave, it's interesting to compare '030, '020 with '386, and '286 
machines, but what happens when you take the Amiga coprocessors and add 
them to the equation? As a system what IBM model compares to a A2000. 
A2500/20, and A2500/30, and just to stir things up, the A3000. I realise
the operating system influences the throughput but a rough guideline 
would be appreciated.

Regards,Brian
---
 * Via ProDoor 3.1R 

daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) (03/13/90)

In article <90030807522946@masnet.uucp> brian.cohen@canremote.uucp (BRIAN COHEN) writes:
>Dave, it's interesting to compare '030, '020 with '386, and '286 
>machines, but what happens when you take the Amiga coprocessors and add 
>them to the equation? As a system what IBM model compares to a A2000. 

I don't much about specific IBM models, but in general you can draw the
following correspondences:

	A2000		<-->	8MHz '286 machine
	A2500/20	<-->	16MHz '386 + '387
	A2500/30	<-->	25MHz '386 + '387
	A3000		<-->	Better 25MHz '386 + '387

That's the best correspondence I can think up.  Lots has to do with what
kind of work you're doing.  An 8MHz '286 might do some things faster than
the A2000, the A2000 will do some things faster than the '286.  All Amiga
machines here have faster hard disk interfaces than the typical PC machine
in the same class; you'd really need an EISA or Microchannel external
bus or some custom, off the expansion bus controller on any PC to go much
faster than the basic A2000 DMA controllers will push you.  Many of the
cheap PCs have a VGA display which looks nicer than an unexpanded Amiga
display, but only the very top end VGAs have decent speed.  The '386 is
a bit faster than an '020 and a bit slower than an '030 at the same clock
rate for most things, given equivalent memory designs.  But some higher
end '386s (most 25MHz and 33MHz machines) have external cache; that's not
as fast as the '030 internal cache by far, but you get much, much more
of it.  And of course, the software issues are big -- Amiga's don't run
anything like MS-DOS, and PClones don't run anything like AmigaOS.  That
gives the PClones the speed advantage of "I own the machine", and the
Amigas the advantage of "I get real 32 bit instructions and an extremely
efficient multitasking environment".  The best head-head test of any
of these machines would probably be having them all run the same things
under UNIX System V Release 4.0, which will eventually run on all A2500+ 
Amigas and most '386 machines.

>Regards,Brian

-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Systems Engineering) "The Crew That Never Rests"
   {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh      PLINK: hazy     BIX: hazy
                    Too much of everything is just enough

kosma%stc-sun@stc.lockheed.com (Monty Kosma) (03/16/90)

   From: Dave Haynie <daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com>
   Date: 12 Mar 90 22:25:27 GMT

   In article <90030807522946@masnet.uucp> brian.cohen@canremote.uucp (BRIAN COHEN) writes:
   >Dave, it's interesting to compare '030, '020 with '386, and '286 
   >machines, but what happens when you take the Amiga coprocessors and add 
   >them to the equation? As a system what IBM model compares to a A2000. 

   I don't much about specific IBM models, but in general you can draw the
   following correspondences:

	   A2000		<-->	8MHz '286 machine
	   A2500/20	<-->	16MHz '386 + '387
	   A2500/30	<-->	25MHz '386 + '387
	   A3000		<-->	Better 25MHz '386 + '387
           ^^^^^
Do you know something we don't know, Dave??? :-)

   -- 
   Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Systems Engineering) "The Crew That Never Rests"
      {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh      PLINK: hazy     BIX: hazy
		       Too much of everything is just enough