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From: heberlei@kongur.ucdavis.edu (Louis Todd Heberlein)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.protocols.appletalk
Subject: Re: MIP rating for the Mac II
Keywords: performance
Message-ID: <6455@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>
Date: 12 Jan 90 20:13:14 GMT
References: <2785@mtuno.ATT.COM> <1712@rodan.acs.syr.edu>
Sender: uucp@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu
Reply-To: heberlei@kongur.UUCP (Louis Todd Heberlein)
Organization: U C Davis, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Lines: 23

In article <1712@rodan.acs.syr.edu> isr@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Michael S. Schechter - ISR group account) writes:
>In article <2785@mtuno.ATT.COM> rjk@mtuno.ATT.COM (Roberto Kohler) writes:
>>Does anyone out there know how the Mac II, Max IIx, and Mac II CX compare
>>in performance with the 80386 based machines?  I'm trying to find out the 
>>MIP rating of the Macs and how they compare with 386 based machines.
>>Would the Mac IIx be equivalent to a 20 MHz 386 machine, etc.
>
>I would reply via Email, but this is a VERY bad comparison. The idea
>of the mythical "MIP" is an idead propagated by computer sales(wo)men.
>A MIP is ONLY useful when comparing proccessors with the same instruction
>set. For example, in my Mac, I have a 16mhz 68020/68881 which can put

I have one friend who told me that a machines MIPS is usually pro-rated
to a VAX MIPS.  For example, if a RISC chip can execute 30 millions
instrucion per second but it takes on average 3 RISC instructions to
equal that of one VAX, then the the chip is rated at 10 MIPS (not 30).
I do not know how true this is.

Most people I know, however, say MIPS stands for:
	Meaningless Index of Processor Speed


Todd