Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!pro-sol.cts.com!ruzun
From: ruzun@pro-sol.cts.com (Roger Uzun)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: ROM 04 GS and resolution
Message-ID: <16475.apple.net@pro-sol>
Date: 9 Feb 90 05:07:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 31

In-Reply-To: message from cs225ax@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu

>>a 9 Mhz gs should be faster than any pre iici mac II
Well in my experience with the 65816 and the 68000, the 65816 is slightly
faster than a similar clocked 68000, that is an 8Mhz 65816 will perform,
in most applications slightly better than an 8Mhz 68000.  BUT for some
applications the 68000 is MUCH faster.  Lichty and Eyes in their
book on 65816 programming, indicate that an 8Mhz 65816 would be slower than an
8Mhz 68000 for an optimized sieve bench, which they concede is a good test
of processor performance.  The 68020 in my experience performs at 3-4 times
the speed of a similar clocked 68000.  The mac II at 15.2 Mhz or so, really
has the processing power of a 30-40 Mhz 65816.  The mac iix uses a 68030, but
the system board is really not designed to take advantage of it.  In my
experience with native 68030 based designs, the 68030 performs at about 1.5
times the level of the same clock speed 68020.  
 
I do not see how anyone can think that a 9 Mhz 65816 machine can perform as
well as a 15 mhz 68020, it cannot.  People who write apple // software are
often talented assembly language programmers, and most 680X0 stuff is in C, so
many people have an inflated idea of the chips capabilites, you apple guys are
lucky in one way, you have the benefit of a lot of effiecient and tightly
coded assembly language applications.  But facts are facts, you need a lot
more than a 9 Mhz 65816 to equal a Mac II's processing power.
I use a 28 Mhz 68030 system 1 wait state burst mode enabled, here are some
C language benchmarks from this system,
sieve 100 iterations of the 1st 1900 primes - 1.9 secs
savage 25000 iterations - 2.0 secs
dhrystones - 12,500
whetstones - 2,000,000

-Roger