CompuServe Messages

> Are you saying that Intel made a greater leap from '486 to Pentium > tham Motorola made from '040 to '060? I hadn't considered that. > All the preious moves were on a see-saw basis. All comparisons on > an equal clock speed of course. Comparing clock rate is a tempting path to confusion. While clocks speed can provide information about the cost or complexity of a chip, it means very little across different families. It was almost a coincidince that the 80×86 and 68K chips were similar speeds at similar clocks. For example, some MIPS chips at 150Mhz are about as fast as some PowerPC chips at 80Mhz. They use different strategy. MIPS uses superpipelining, while the PowerPC aims at superscalar. Two equally good ways to reach a speed goal. There is also the false illusion of equality using clocks. This is because Intel became very aggressive with the clocks starting with the 486 so the chips became very quick. So while equal at same clock, many people were running 66Mhz 486's! Very depressing. The 68K chips were always more elegant, had fewer bugs (ask me about the first 386's!), and operated cleaner, but Moto seemed to have trouble delivering them starting with the '040 and really had trouble with higher clocks. I suspect that with CISC getting so complex, Intels deeper pockets helped make the difference. Now with PowerPC the shoe is on the other foot. Moto/IBM/Apple is coming out with PowerPC chips several times faster than Intel. They also look to be getting more agressive with the clocks than Pentium. Word on the street is that the Intels P6 may be "late", and server oriented. The "Microprocessor Report" recently went so far as to speculate that with 604, PowerPC will just keep pulling ahead of Intel. They even think the 604 may be faster than the P6, and that 620 will be a whole new level of performance. It will be fun to be aboard for the ride. —— Andrew