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From: ihm@nrcvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m68k,comp.sys.intel
Subject: Re: 386 vs 020 and big benchmarks (sieve)
Message-ID: <873@nrcvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 22-Apr-87 14:04:58 EST
Article-I.D.: nrcvax.873
Posted: Wed Apr 22 14:04:58 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 25-Apr-87 06:41:48 EST
References: <930@intsc.UUCP> <513@omen.UUCP> <933@intsc.UUCP> <2224@tekgvs.TEK.COM>
Reply-To: ihm@minnie.UUCP (Ian Merritt)
Distribution: comp
Organization: The Frobboz Magic Microprocessor Engineering Co., Inc.
Lines: 42
Xref: utgpu comp.sys.m68k:369 comp.sys.intel:168

>Posted: Thu Apr 16 17:56:01 1987
>
>In article <930@intsc.UUCP> tomk@intsc.UUCP (Tom Kohrs @fae) writes:
>> 
>> If all you want to do is calculate sieves all day then use the '020.  But
>> if you want to do real crunching on large problems then the 386 will run
>> circles around the '020.  That is not to say the '020 with the 256 byte
>> cache does not have its niches.  There is a number of application in the
>> embedded control area that have inner loops that fit nicely in 256 bytes.

I suppose this guy thinks Motorola designed the cache specifically for
benchmarks?  Caches have long been used to improve performance in real
large-scall applications.  Unless you program with NO loops, an
instruction cache will provide a very real benefit to real
applications.

>
>This is exactly the kind of stuff one would expect to read in a posting
>with this in the header:
>> From: tomk@intsc.UUCP (Tom Kohrs @fae)
>> Organization: Intel Sleeze, Silicon Valley, Ca.
>                ^^^^^^^^^^^^
>And it is exactly the kind of posting that should only be published in
>/dev/null.
>
>keith
>

Yep, and do you know who claimed that the 286 was of comparable speed
to the 68020?  That's right.  I have in my office two 286 based IBM
toys and in the computer room there are two 68020 (only 16.67 MHz)
unix machines.  Do you want to know which machines I (and about 20
other people) use? That's right, the 68020's.  They are on the order
of 20 times as fast in our applications such as database maintenance,
editing, and more like 60 times as fast at compilations.  Regardless
of whether the cache is a contributing factor or not, the total
throughput is vastly superior to the 286, and from what I am hearing
and reading, the 386's real throughput in real applications is only on
the order of 3 to 6 times a 286.  The 386 maybe able to run circles
around the 68020, but can it outcompute it?  The 68020 doesn't do much
running it just sorta sits there in its socket computing... (:->)
					<>IHM<>