stolk@fwi.uva.nl (Jacco de Leeuw) (04/10/91)
Greetings to you all,
I noticed quite a lot 386/486 comparisons on this newsgroup.
Well, what about a nice clean fact?
The latest version of norton sysinfo will rate a 386 at 33MHz with
64K cache and 80ns RAM with 35.4 (That's the machine I own)
A 486/33 (Dont know wether there is an external cache involved here)
is rated twice as fast: 70 or so.
Norton SI is quite representable for the average DOS application, so
I think the rates are quite relevant.
Of course disk io, and video speed and stuff is not included in this
test.
Regards,
Bram Stolk
(cs student, University of Amsterdam)
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine) (04/11/91)
In article <1991Apr10.105542.12938@fwi.uva.nl> stolk@fwi.uva.nl (Jacco de Leeuw) writes: >Norton SI is quite representable for the average DOS application, so >I think the rates are quite relevant. That's simply untrue. SI times a small set of instructions, and overemphasizes the speed of multiplication. SI will give you a fair comparison of two chips with the same internal architecture, e.g. 386 chips running at different speeds, but can be quite misleading when used to compare different chips. As has been noted elsewhere, the only real benchmark is your own application. I find it useful as a rule of thumb that a 486 accomplishes 2 to 3 times as much work per clock cycle as a 386, but that can get swamped by differences in memory architecture (cache size, particularly) and peripherals. -- John R. Levine, IECC, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, +1 617 864 9650 johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {ima|spdcc|world}!iecc!johnl Cheap oil is an oxymoron.