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From: mash@mips.COM (John Mashey)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Let's pretend
Keywords: Intel, 586, windows
Message-ID: <44278@mips.mips.COM>
Date: 21 Dec 90 20:52:05 GMT
References: <3058@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> <1990Dec19.052338.3911@kithrup.COM> <1990Dec19.143749.3216@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <1990Dec19.222932.1446@kithrup.COM> <3080@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> <44256@mips.mips.COM> <3082@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
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Reply-To: mash@mips.COM (John Mashey)
Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Inc.
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In article <3082@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes:
>In article <44256@mips.mips.COM> mash@mips.COM (John Mashey) writes:

>  As for cost, it's very hard to compare. Because the 486 bundles a lot
>of stuff which is normally included in a workstation, MMU, FPU, and some
>cache and a cache controller, it's hard to do a comparison to RISC which
>is representative. If you count just the CPU, or CPU and cache, then the
>486 looks expensive, while is you count like a vendor, and include the
>CPU, FPU, MMU, cache and controller, all the glue chips needed for
>discrete components, and the nebulous cost of motherboard realestate,
>the 486 may look very desirable.

You clearly do need to compare apples to apples.  About the only
way I know how to od this is to compare the "CPU cores",
i.e., eveything on the CPU side of the memory bus, for example:

486:
	486 itself
	SRAMs (included in all 486-based machines for which SPEC numbers
		have been published, as far as I can tell)
	cache controller
	any other glue needed to get to the memory bus (?)
	(This looks like it has 2 medium-sized VLSI parts + SRAM, plus
	(maybe) a little glue.
MIPS:
	R3000 (incl. MMU & cache controller)
	R3010 FPU
	SRAMs (direct control by CPU, no extra parts)
	misc other glue, such as read/write buffers
		(these days, a few small parts)
	(This package is what I gave the numbers for; it has 2 medium-sized
	VLSI parts + SRAM, plus a little glue...)
88K:
	88100
	2-8 88200s

SPARC:  (more variable)
	Integer Unit
	FPU
	MMU (either as MMU-part, or Sun-style SRAM design)
	SRAMs for cache
	cache control, glue, etc

Fortunately, it is actually easier to do this for workstations,
than for, for example embedded control, where everybody startsto argue
about the need/desirability of various features, and apples-oranges
comparisons abound :-)
-- 
-john mashey	DISCLAIMER: <generic disclaimer, I speak for me only, etc>
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