Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!mintaka!bloom-beacon!mcgill-vision!quiche!calvin!avrum
From: avrum@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca (Avrum WARSHAWSKY)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Commodore and 68040
Keywords: Commodore 68040 EE TIMES
Message-ID: <2211@calvin.cs.mcgill.ca>
Date: 16 Feb 90 04:48:51 GMT
References: <9697@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Reply-To: avrum@calvin.cs.mcgill.ca (Avrum WARSHAWSKY)
Organization: SOCS, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Lines: 18

In article <9697@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes:
>I think you basically have it here.  It takes a Motorola, or possibly an
>Intel, to build something reasonably competative using a more complex
>architecture.  Not everyone can bang out a chip with 1.2 million transistors.
>At least from Motorola's claims, today's Sparc at 25MHz isn't quite as fast
>as the 68040 at 25MHz. 
> (etc.)

There is one other point about RISC vs. CISC. In any machine, the maximum
clock speed will be determined by the longest instruction or part of an 
instruction executed in a single cycle. In a CISC there are more instructions
to worry about, so while a 25MHz 68040 may be faster than a 25MHz SPARC, it
will probably be easier to manufacture a 50MHz SPARC than a 50MHz CISC machine
using the same IC technology.

---
Avrum Warshawsky - McGill University, Montreal Canada
	  avrum@pike.ee.mcgill.ca