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From: berggren@eecs.cs.pdx.edu (Eric Berggren)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: Comparing 486 to 386 Systems
Message-ID: <2326@pdxgate.UUCP>
Date: 11 Apr 91 08:49:02 GMT
References: <40409@netnews.upenn.edu> <1991Apr4.062503.1325@agate.berkeley.edu> <27865@neptune.inf.ethz.ch> <1991Apr6.191106.5863@cc.helsinki.fi> <27899@neptune.inf.ethz.ch>
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brandis@inf.ethz.ch (Marc Brandis) writes:

>In article <1991Apr6.191106.5863@cc.helsinki.fi> torvalds@cc.helsinki.fi writes:
>>In article <27865@neptune.inf.ethz.ch>, brandis@inf.ethz.ch (Marc Brandis) writes:
>>  Fos a machine running just dos, the only NOTABLE difference between
>>ANY x86 is speed, so there you could use a 8088 at 500MHz if they made
>>them. For anything else (read unix, windows, etc) you want a 386 or a
>>486 (yes I'm oversimplifying). The 286 just won't cut it.
>>

>That was exactly my point. As far as I remember the original question was about
>a system to run DOS. With Windows you get the benefits of VM86 and of the 
>paging unit, but not of the 32-bit architecture (and I do not think that the
>advantage of Windows in enhanced (speak 386) mode vs. Windows in standard
>(speak 286) mode is as large as the advantage of Windows in standard mode vs.
>Windows in real (speak 8086) mode. For UNIX, I could not agree with you more.

  Sigh... Must be nice to spend several thousand dollars on a 486 system to
run MS-DOS. <grumble...>

  Anyway, I'm looking into either an upper-end 386 or a low end 486. I'm
being told after adding a 387, I would be within around $600 to a 486 board.
Other than speed, I can't _really_ see the big difference, since the 386
board has 128k cache...

-e.b.

==============================================================================
  Eric Berggren             |         "Life is a Turing Test;
  Computer Science/Eng.     |           We're all automatons!"
  berggren@eecs.cs.pdx.edu  |              - (click, whir, buzz, chirp)