Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!uunet!sjsca4!molehill!poffen
From: poffen@molehill (Russ Poffenberger)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: 386 vs 386SX
Message-ID: <1989Dec27.220822.1144@sj.ate.slb.com>
Date: 27 Dec 89 22:08:22 GMT
References: <25346@cup.portal.com>
Reply-To: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Schlumberger ATE, San Jose, CA
Lines: 27

In article <25346@cup.portal.com> Vaprak@cup.portal.com (John C Foy) writes:
>Hey gang!
>
>It has come to pass that my ole 'part r us' 286 has finally shown its
>inadequacies (sp?) and I have decided to make the move to a 386 system.
>
>I am somewhat confused though regarding the 386 vs. 386SX systems.
>Will the SX run ALL software designed for a straight 386?  I do not wish 
>to get the SX and go through the hair pulling that I have done so far with
>my juked 286!  The only reason I consider the SX is because of money.  If
>the SX will not provide the same results (except speed) as a straight 386,
>then I will have to bite the bullet and go straight 386.  I wish to have
>the capabilities of OS/2, UNIX, Xenix, etc. as well as MSDOS.
>

Yes, the 386SX is supposed to be 100% compatible with everything about the '386
except for its data bus width (16 bits vs 32 bits). There are two speed
constraints that hit you, 1) the 386SX is only available in 16Mhz versions. 2)
the data bus width gives it effectively 1/2 the throughput of a 386 in many
operations. In fact, a 386SX is no faster than a 16Mhz 286 system. However all
that nice memory management builtin is what makes it better than a 286.

Russ Poffenberger               DOMAIN: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com
Schlumberger Technologies       UUCP:   {uunet,decwrl,amdahl}!sjsca4!poffen
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