From:	"Steven Engelhardt" <sengelha AT uiuc DOT edu>
Newsgroups:	comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject:	Re: 686
Date:	23 Feb 1997 13:31:27 GMT
Organization:	University of Illinois at Urbana
Lines:	54
Message-ID:	<01bc218d$be63fb20$b7407e82@thalidomide>
References:	<5e8keu$cp3 AT chronicle DOT concentric DOT net> <5ebhn2$lsl AT freenet-news DOT carleton DOT ca> <330A2003 DOT 6191 AT post DOT comstar DOT ru>
NNTP-Posting-Host:	isr1409.urh.uiuc.edu
To:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
DJ-Gateway:	from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp

Well I know I'm going to start some kind of nasty thread here, but I have
to defend my system.

A Pentium Pro 200 will be faster on all accounts than the equivalent 6x86
running a fully 32-bit OS like WinNT, Linux, etc.  On a 16-bit OS the 6x86
will have (marginal, virtually unnoticeable) better integer performance. 
But that's not the killer.

The worst part about the 6x86 is its ghastly FPU performance.  A Cyrix 6x86
166 has approximately the floating point performance of a Pentium 90.  Try
running Quake or a 3-D application and you'll notice a huge difference.

Another terrible problem with the 6x86 is its massive heat generation which
makes it very sensitive to reflections off of the bus.  Microsoft
encountered this problem frequently enough to justify disabling the L1
cache on the 6x86 in NT for stability reasons ; this led to huge
performance losses in the 6x86.  There is a patch for the 6x86 under NT,
but it can introduce system instability.  Of course, the 6x86L fixed many
of these problems.

There are also a few, relatively unfrequent incompatibility issues with the
6x86 where applications refuse to run.

The AMD K5 (the K6 isn't even out yet, but it promises to be killer) is a
great chip, but I believe they only have up to P-133 equivalent chips up to
now, so that puts them out of the race.  The M2 should be a great chip.

Cyrix's and AMD's are great for the money, but I would never choose it
deliberately over an Intel... yet.  The competition promises to keep Intel
honest and working hard though.

Steven Engelhardt
sengelha AT uiuc DOT edu



Dim Zegebart <zager AT post DOT comstar DOT ru> wrote in article
<330A2003 DOT 6191 AT post DOT comstar DOT ru>...
> Paul Derbyshire wrote:
> > > I have a Cyrix 686 166, 24 megs of ram, windows 95, Screamin 3d.
> > 
> > 686???
> 
> Nothing strange !
> It's standart Cyrix/IBM notation. And I think 
> iPentiumPro<=AMD-K-6<=Cyrix/IBM686 (performance) and
> iPentiumPro>AMD-K-6>Cyrix/IBM686 (price)
> (at the same cpu clock)
> 
> -- 
> Regards,
> Dim Zegebart,
> Moscow Russia.
> 

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