Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!cbmvax!daveh
From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Re: Re: Motorola vs Intel (who's faster?)
Message-ID: <13410@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 24 Jul 90 16:39:33 GMT
References: <3384.AA3384@sosaria>
Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax (Dave Haynie)
Distribution: comp
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 41

In article <3384.AA3384@sosaria> wizard@sosaria.imp.com (Chris Brand) writes:
>In article <3942@azure8.UUCP> dusek@motcid.UUCP (James P. Dusek) says:

>> 	BUT a 68030 at 33MHZ and an Intell 80386 at 33MHZ will not
>> have the same mips performance.

>Yes! I'd love to see once exactly how fast all these chips are (80286,
>68000, 80386, 68020, 80486, 68040). For example, I've heard once that a
>standard 68000 Amiga has about the same computing power as a 12 Mhz 80286.
>Is this true? How about a fast 386/486? What does it take to blow them out
>of the water?

You can't tell the performance of any _SYSTEM_ simply by looking at the CPU's
clock speed.  You need to know the kind of memory the CPU is talking to
(including possibly system-level caches), the any overhead work the CPU is 
doing (eg, is there other hardware helping out the CPU, or is the CPU being
used to replace some hardware), and the nature of the operating system that's
driving the whole thing.

You also need to know the kind of program that's running.  You can find some
things that a garden variety 12MHz AT will do faster than a plain 68000-based
Amiga, and other things the Amiga will do faster.  If you know the chip types,
you can certainly make a few performance estimates when comparing system to
system: you know how many clock cycles a memory fetch would take, what kind
of objects the CPU can manipulate, etc.  In general, 80286 system compare
with 68000 system, 68020 and 68030 system compare with 80386 systems, and
68040 systems should compare well with 80486 systems.  

But again, it depends on how the thing is built.  HP has a 50MHz 68030 system 
that beats most 25MHz 80486 systems in most integer benchmarks (though you'll
find the same benchmark on the same system will change depending on the OS in
charge at the time).  Of course, the HP is designed to be a workstation, and
costs like one, whereas most 80486 systems are built much like other PCs.  
And there's nothing much HP could do to make that machine equal the 80486 in 
floating point operations, other than dropping a 68040 into it.

>Chris Brand - wizard@sosaria.imp.com
-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests"
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           The Dave Haynie branch of the New Zealand Fan Club