Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!mcdchg!chinet!orac From: orac@chinet.chi.il.us (Paul Giovacchini) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: 486: Fantastic or Flop? Message-ID: <1990Jun3.181830.2145@chinet.chi.il.us> Date: 3 Jun 90 18:18:30 GMT References: Organization: Chinet - Chicago Public Access UNIX Lines: 25 In article clong@topaz.rutgers.edu (Chris Long) writes: > >Has anyone else read the article in the June issue of PC World where >33 MHz 386s are compared to 25 MHz 486s? The author conludes that >there is no substantial difference in performance in most cases >between the two. This shocked me, because I'd expect the 486 to >be about twice as fast, on the average. Is it possible that the >8k internal cache of the 486s tested wasn't turned on? Failure >to do this could indeed degrade the performance of a 486 by about >50% (see the June issue of Personal Workstation, page 46), which >would explain the results reported. > >Comments? > >-Chris Did the machine tested have an AT bus? It must have. Because the AT bus can not do the "burst mode" of the 486, the performance increase that you will get, as I have read in about 3 different magazines is "negligible". BUT if you have either a MCA or an EISA bus, which can both handle the burst mode, the performance is astronomical. ---- -Paul Giovacchini | " Think you are having a bad day? ( orac\@chinet.chi.il.us ) | I just fried 2 computers and a cat! "