Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!uwvax!oddjob!ncar!ico!scottw From: scottw@ico.ISC.COM (Scott Wiesner) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: Intel 386SX chip & its applications Message-ID: <6451@ico.ISC.COM> Date: 24 Jun 88 14:10:29 GMT References: <234@belltec.UUCP> Organization: Interactive Systems Corp, Boulder, CO Lines: 38 in article <234@belltec.UUCP>, jim@belltec.UUCP (Mr. Jim's Own Logon) says: > > 386SX is slightly faster than a 386 with the BS16 line tied low because of > some changes to the pipelining, but not much faster. For comperable speeds, > the 386SX will be 55% to 70% as fast as a real 386. My experience with the Compaq 386SX machine is that for normal unix use, it feels about the same as a 16 Mhz 386 based machine. Here are some dhrystone2 numbers: compile time execute real user sys noreg reg ---- ---- --- ----- --- Compaq 386SX: 43.0 21.6 7.9 2378 2601 Zenith 386: 49.5 15.9 7.2 3159 3425 Compaq 25 Mhz: 32.3 7.8 4.2 6747 7107 With -O: Compaq 386SX: 52.8 31.2 8.7 2825 3105 Zenith 386: 49.7 23.0 7.0 3671 3952 Compaq 25 Mhz: 39.5 11.5 4.3 7716 8130 In fairness to Compaq and Zenith, I should mention that the above machines are all pre-production boxes. Things may have changed slightly. The Zenith we have seems to have a pretty slow disk. The little Compaq is a very nice machine. It's in a smaller than normal (for and AT) chassis, and is very very quiet. For pure cpu stuff (based on the above dhrystones), it looks like it's about 75% of a standard 386 box. For what I was doing with it, (software development) it was fine. The 25 Mhz Compaq is a real screamer, but has a real bottleneck at the disk. All the above machines are running Interactive's 386/ix Unix V.3 system. Scott Wiesner Interactive Systems scottw@ico.isc.com