Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!pacbell!belltec!jim
From: jim@belltec.UUCP (Mr. Jim's Own Logon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Intel 386SX chip & its applications
Summary: P9 (386SX) What it is, and isn't.
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Message-ID: <234@belltec.UUCP>
Date: 22 Jun 88 14:28:52 GMT
References: <206900116@prism>
Organization: Bell Technologies, Fremont, CA
Lines: 26



    The 386SX (formerly leaked as the P9) is not a 286 compatible at all.
The internals and the timings are very similar to the 386. It cannot be 
added to a 286 socket directly (although a simple daughter board can be 
built that will allow this, you'll see these available soon enough). The
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.

    This still raises the question: why design a new machine around the 
386SX? A system cost is based on (in order of most $ to least) the memory,
the hard disk, the chassis and power supply, the controllers,monitor, and
keyboard, the support logic, and finally the CPU. So what if you can save 
$100 on the CPU, it is a small percentage of the system cost. And you are
going to settle for 60% of the performance? Not me.

    Watch what Compaq does, its new 386SX machine will not be a apples to
apples comparison. When you price out the machine do it for an equal 386
machine: 1 meg of RAM, same size hard disk, no cache, same size power supply.
For a end user price of $3000 there should be only $300 or so difference 
in parts (and that includes the mark up). 

   Sorry, I got carried away.
							-Jim Wall
							Bell Technologies Inc.