Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!rice!uupsi!rodan.acs.syr.edu!amichiel
From: amichiel@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Allen J Michielsen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: 486SX - Intel now telling lies
Message-ID: <1991Jun2.172907.2373@rodan.acs.syr.edu>
Date: 2 Jun 91 17:29:07 GMT
References: <1991May30.164751.16585@thyme.jpl.nasa.gov> <1991May31.183111.16505@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <1991Jun2.030215.11584@unixland.natick.ma.us>
Organization: Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY
Lines: 28

In <1991Jun2.030215.11584@> bill@unixland.natick.ma.us (Bill Heiser)
>In <1991May31.183111.16505@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> tmkk@uiuc.edu (K. Khan)
>>It means that Intel is scared silly of the industry's upcoming move to
>>the MIPS RISC chips, ...
>How does the i486 compare with the 20 - 30 MIPS of the SUN Sparc chips?
>How about the MIPS chips?

   It doesn't compare all that badly when corrected for clock differences.
And if the rumoured reports on the 80586 are true (4 to 5 x increase in perf),
the whole thing gets more clouded.
   The counter point is that RISC perf won't stand still either.  But systems
will (or have they already) get to a point were the typical application for
a user level, is being held up by the user, not the system.  I'd have to say
that for most DOS direct applications, anything more than a 16 Mhz 80386 is
a waste of money.  In a windows environment, I'd say between 20 & 25 Mhz the
same is true.  That isn't to say that 'killer' 33 Mhz or 486 systems are a
total waste, but to say that for most user applications (wordprocessing, 
spreadsheets, etc) the overall system performance increase is much less
than the increase in money.  That includes factors as disk i/o and user
typing speed....
al



-- 
Al. Michielsen, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Syracuse University
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