486 vs 040
3 messages in this thread
OK, so there's a lot of talk and hype about the 486, with no retaliation by
Motorolla that I can see about the 040. When the 040 was first being
advertised in amiga world they used to put comparisons with the 486, but
this seemed to go out of style.
Has anyone seen a magazine article comparing the 2? I've always
believed that Motorolla had better architecture, but I've never seen any
proof. Help! I need ammunition against my die hard IBM clone fans!
-Keir from Utah-
Keir,
Although I doubt such exercises are worth the effort, you might
check back through Byte magazine about the time the 040 and 486 chips were
first coming out. They had an article comparing the two using benchmarks
aimed mainly at testing pure processor power without the infrastructure of
operating systems and language compilers. Though I don't recall the issue,
I'm sure you can find it by browsing through the library issues. As I
recall both chips were considered of nearly equal power with a slight edge
to the 040 under certain circumstances and, I believe, at a clock rate
somewhat slower than the 486. But check it out, don't quote me.
Motorola had an ad that ran in some of the trade papers. It was a 2 page
ad that asked what you got with a 50 mhz 486, DOS 5.0, and MS Windows 3.1.
Answer, 2/3 of a Mac Quatro! Winmarks and applications benchmarks were
included sourced from PC Mag.
The best indication of the architecture difference is that the x86 family
is found almost exclusivly found in IBMs and compatables. For almost all
other applications, the 68k fammily is used. Even IBM uses the 68k in
their laser printers!
Gary Dunlap : Wyrd Software
: It just works like magic!