Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!cbmvax!daveh
From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Recommendations needed about A2500/30 as research workstation
Message-ID: <9903@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 1 Mar 90 03:19:06 GMT
References: <6623@cps3xx.UUCP> <2017@sauron.Columbia.NCR.COM> <22494@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <9900@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 43

In article <9900@cbmvax.commodore.com> valentin@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com (Valentin Pepelea) writes:
>In article <2017@sauron.Columbia.NCR.COM> stevem@sauron.UUCP (Steve McClure) writes:

>>I can't give you any concrete numbers here, however the '030 and 386 should
>>be comperable.

>The 80486 is in a totally different category. At 15 Mips, it certainly would
>beat the 68030 down, except for the fact that it is not ready for shipment
>yet. 

Interestingly enough, the 80486 does win.  But probably not by as much as
Intel would have the world believe.  Personal Workstation magazine (nee MIPS)
did benchmarks recently on HP's 50MHz '030 system.  At integer benchmarks,
they beat out every 25MHz '486 yet tested.  The '486 always wins at floating
point over the 40MHz '882.  So you can, if you like, say that a '486 is
roughly twice as fast as a 68030.

Another thing that's interesting, though, is the effect of these very big
on-chip caches, for both the 80486 and the 68040.  You'll find lots of
performance difference between 68030 systems running at the same clock
speed; it's relatively difficult to build a 68030 system that keeps up
with the 68030 at any given clock speed (I mentioned HP because they seem
to build the best ones, albeit at workstation prices).  You'll see much
less difference between different vendors of '486 and '040 systems.  

>Motorola is likely to come out with a bug free 20 Mips 68040 before Intel 
>irons out its last bugs.

That's debatable; the '486 does have a significant time-frame lead on the
'040.  I'd be really surprised to see the 68040 hit today's 80486 volumes
with any bugs, though.  Motorola has been traditionally very good with this.
Even back in the '030 days, when I had some very fresh 25MHz parts with no
markings on them, with a note saying "room temperature only", we didn't run
into any bugs.

>Valentin



-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Systems Engineering) "The Crew That Never Rests"
   {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh      PLINK: hazy     BIX: hazy
                    Too much of everything is just enough