john@wa3wbu.UUCP (John Gayman) (09/26/90)
Does anyone know what the difference is between a 386SX and 386DX chip ? John -- John Gayman, WA3WBU | UUCP: uunet!wa3wbu!john 1869 Valley Rd. | Marysville, PA 17053 | Packet: WA3WBU @ WB3EAH
ted@helios.ucsc.edu (Ted Cantrall) (09/28/90)
In article <718@wa3wbu.UUCP> john@wa3wbu.UUCP (John Gayman) writes: > Does anyone know what the difference is between a 386SX and 386DX > chip ? --- Internally, they are the same - both are 32bit. The SX has 24 address bits to reach "only" 16 meg bytes as opposed to the 32/4096 for the DX. The SX data path is 16 bits to the 32 bits for the DX. This makes very little diference with todays software which is written to work on the 8 bit bus of the 8088 machines. There should be no difference. Later on, when there is true 32 bit software to be had, the SX will fetch the 32 bit instructions in 2 steps and so will be slower. But even then I suspect there will still be many 8 and 16 bit instructions, so it's not like you'd be half as fast. -ted- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ted@helios.ucsc.edu |"He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the W (408)459-2110 |Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness H (408)423-2444 |and to walk humbly with your God?" Micah 6:8 (RSV)