Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!fluke!ssc-vax!housen
From: housen@ssc-vax.UUCP (Kevin Housen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: MacII/Compaq Speed Comparision
Keywords: Summary
Message-ID: <2419@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Date: 15 Dec 88 21:06:55 GMT
Organization: Boeing Aerospace Corp., Seattle WA
Lines: 19



Thanks to all who responded to my inquiry about speed comparisons between
a MacII and a Compaq 386.  For the most part, the consensus was

(1) Most people were of the opinion that the 881 is faster than the 386/387 
when doing trig functions (even though the 386 was running at a somewhat
faster clock speed).  So the results of the first benchmark may not be too
surprising.

(2) The difference in speed for the second benchmark (smoothing of an array)
may be largely due to differences in the optimizations done by the two compilers.
I called Absoft about their compiler.  Apparently, it does little, if any loop
optimization.  So this may well be the reason for the poor performance on the
Mac.  For those interested, the soon-to-be-released Absoft A/UX RAT compiler
will do "some" optimizing.

Again, thanks for the responses...

Kevin Housen