Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!att!emory!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: PC/AT clones with RISC cpu
Message-ID: <2824@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: 1 Nov 90 14:02:29 GMT
References: <2081@aber-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen)
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center, Schenectady NY
Lines: 21

In article <2081@aber-cs.UUCP> pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) writes:

| 	Note: i486 motherboards, without the 486, are not much more
| 	expensive than 386SX ones. Get my drift?

  I don't know about in thousands, but I have been looking hard at
boards for my project cheap-ix, and the SX boards with CPU are about
$350 in Q5, the 486 $900-1500 Q5, without CPU. Allowing $150 for the SX
chip (I can't find anyone selling them separately in the pile I have
handy), that would make the board about 4x more expensive.

  I think the use of 32 bit paths, more expensive bus control chips, and
more layers in the board to keep it reliable at higher speeds account
for this.

  Note that this is not to agree or disagree, because I think you could
argue that the price diference is what counts rather than the ratio, and
the ratio in a complete system price would be only 10-20% increase.
-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
      The Twin Peaks Halloween costume: stark naked in a body bag