Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: 286,386sx,386?
Summary: You said it
Message-ID: <746@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: 3 Oct 89 13:00:37 GMT
References:  <863@fiver.UUCP>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center
Lines: 22

In article <863@fiver.UUCP>, palowoda@fiver.UUCP (Bob Palowoda) writes:

|   I ran the MIPS test on the 386SX, overall it had about 85 to 90 percent
|  of the MIPS that a 16Mhz 386 would. Somewhere around 2.7 mips. I decided
|  to use DOS on the machine. The 386 version of UNIX was just a bit too
|  much for it to handle.

  This is pretty much the story. If you run benchmarks using 32 bit
software you will find that most programs run about twice as fast as a
286 on a 386, about 30% faster on an SX. The SX is also slower (at the
rated 16MHz speed) than a 16 or 20MHz 286.

  I would say the SX is a bad deal. It is not as fast at DOS as a 286,
or as fast for UNIX or OS/386 as a real 386. It is slightly cheaper than
a 386 (and that's probably a marketing decision, I bet it costs more to
build) and not as good as either the 386DX or 286 in terms of
price/performance. 
-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
"The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called
'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see
that the world is flat!" - anon