lee (04/13/83)
In the April 1983 issue of IEEE Micro, Martin De Prycker has an article entitled "A Performance Comparison of Three Contemporary 16-bit Microprocessors". In it, he concludes that the Z8000 is the fastest microprocessor when used with high level block structured languages (assuming memory is not too slow). He graphs relative performance of the 8086, 68000, and Z8000 at 4, 8, 10, and 12 Mhz clock rates. With the 8086 performance at 4 Mhz being 1, his model shows a 12 Mhz 68000 being 4.5 and a 12 Mhz Z8000 being almost 5.5. If I read his article correctly, this means that a 12 Mhz Z8000 (if there were such a thing) would run 5.5 times faster than a 4 Mhz 8086. A 12 Mhz 68000 would run 4.5 times faster. A 10 Mhz Z8000 would provide the same performance as a 12 Mhz 68000. His numbers all assume that memory is fast enough to keep up (i.e. there are no wait states) although he also graphs performance as memory speed decreases and wait states need to be added. I've always felt that Z8000's had a nice architecture but never really felt they were faster than 68000's. This could be because faster 68000 parts are available than Z8000 parts. Does anyone out there have a good feel for Z8000 performance vs. 68000 performance?