Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!wang!saturn!martin From: martin@saturn.uucp (Martin J. Schedlbauer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware Subject: Re: Comparing 486 to 386 Systems Keywords: 486 386 Message-ID: <1991Apr8.154643.784@saturn.uucp> Date: 8 Apr 91 15:46:43 GMT References: <1991Apr6.045408.15395@agate.berkeley.edu> <1991Apr7.170017.23962@news.cs.indiana.edu> <1991Apr7.232941.21382@agate.berkeley.edu> Reply-To: martin@saturn.UUCP (Martin J. Schedlbauer) Organization: Martin Schedlbauer, Billerica, MA 01862 (USA) Lines: 31 In article <1991Apr7.232941.21382@agate.berkeley.edu> c60b-1eq@web-1e.berkeley.edu (Noam Mendelson) writes: >In article <1991Apr7.170017.23962@news.cs.indiana.edu> mikes@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Michael Squires) writes: >>In article <1991Apr6.045408.15395@agate.berkeley.edu> c60b-1eq@e260-1d.berkeley.edu (Noam Mendelson) writes: >>> >>>Perhaps, but since the majority of MSDOS software contains 16-bit code, >>>the 486 does not offer much realistic speed improvement. I recently upgraded from a 386-25 (64k cache) to a 486-25 (8k + 128k cache). It is faster than before but not by much under DOS. I found that Windows 3.0 performance is indeed better. Many 486 system allow one to disable caching of memory in the upper address ranges. This is important for memory-mapped I/O cards such as VGA, etc. Under Unix I found the system to be drastically better and the floating point hardware is considerably faster under both DOS and Unix than the 387-25. If you are running mainly 16bit DOS (i.e. no 386 extender DOS) and you don't need floating point hardware, a 386-25 is the most economical. If you do need FP performance, go for a 486. It's cheaper than a 386+387. ...Martin -- ============================================================================== Martin J. Schedlbauer | martin@saturn.UUCP | ...!ulowell!saturn!martin 8 Gilman Road | mschedlb@ulowell.edu | ...!uunet!wang!saturn!martin Billerica, MA 01862 USA | CIS: 76675, 3364 | Voice/Fax: (508) 670-2169