Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!agate!labrea!decwrl!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!steinmetz!davidsen
From: davidsen@steinmetz.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: 386SX for PC/AT
Keywords: 386SX, AT
Message-ID: <12835@steinmetz.ge.com>
Date: 19 Dec 88 22:51:11 GMT
References: <1031@logico.UUCP> <1550@micomvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 27

In article <1550@micomvax.UUCP> ray@micomvax.UUCP (Ray Dunn) writes:

| The 386SX should *not* be regarded as a performance enhancer over 286
| machines, indeed at the same clock speed, the 386SX performs slower than a
| 286.

  Running 8088 code (like MS-DOS), this might be true, although I
wouldn't want to have to measure the performance and swear that it was
one way or the other. Some instructions are a little faster, some a
little slower, and the prefetch queue is the same size as the 386 (I
believe, I have to rely of a magazine article).

| The 386SX provides extra functionality over the 286, not extra performance.
| 
| The 386SX is what the 80286 *should* have been, and allows you to run full
| blown protected UNIX etc, and, eventually, the 386 version of OS/2.
| 
| Moral: Don't buy a 386SX machine to run DOS!

  I agree with that, however, if you buy a 386 compiler such as Phar
Lap, you should see a large improvement in performance. On an 80386
changing from 286 to 386 instructions gives 2-3 improvement in most
cases, I would expect about 2:1 faster for a 386SX.
-- 
	bill davidsen		(wedu@ge-crd.arpa)
  {uunet | philabs}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me