From: rskinner@mipos2.intel.com (Rod Skinner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.intel
Subject: Re: 486SL dropped, vendors test Cyrix
Date: 7 Jan 93 16:30:59 GMT
Organization: Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA USA

In article <1993Jan6.135936.23923@crd.ge.com> davidsen@crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes:
>In article <C0E0zB.DwG@inews.Intel.COM>, rskinner@mipos2.intel.com (Rod Skinner) writes:
>
>| I think that the PC Week article states that Intel is incorporating the
>| features into its main product lines.  That would imply a stronger
>| commitment to these features than a product designed for portable
>| computing.  
>
>  I read that as "most of the features." As far as I can tell from the
>two articles I've seen, these will still be 5v rather than 3.3v parts.
>Correct me if you have access to more info than I do.
>
>| 
>| Another interesting article comparing the Intel486 SX processor and the
>| Cyrix SLC is in InfoWorld December 21 page 48 "Reviews/Product
>| Comparisons: 25-MHz 486 Notebooks".  InfoWorld seems to come to the
>| conclusion that the Intel486 SX processors are 35% to 40% FASTER than
>| the Cyrix parts.  They use several examples but the most powerful is two
>| machines from TI: TravelMate 4000 WinSX/25 and the TravelMate WinSLC.
>| Both weigh 6 pounds with battery.  Similarly configured machines yield
>| SYSmark92 results of 75.93 (Intel486 SX) and 47.23 (Cyrix).  They
>| indicate that Cyrix system "posted a SYSmark92 close to 38 percent
>| slower than its 486SX/25 sibling."
>
>  That sounds reasonable. There is a significant performance penalty in
>the SLC due to smaller cache and lack of burst mode memory access. That
>was one of the reasons people wanted the SL, for better performance and
>lower power.
>
If you were to compare the InfoWorld published results with Intel386 sx
and sl results published by the BAPCo benchmark organization where a 
SYSmark92 of 100 is a midrange Intel486DX-33 result you see...:

Machine				Processor/MHz		SYSmark92
Compaq LTE Lite/25c		Intel386 sl-25MHz	51.90
NEC PowerMate 3x25a		Intel386 sx-25MHz	51.60
PC Brand LeaderBook 486LC/25	Cyrix 486slc-25MHz	48.69
TI TravelMate WinSLC		Cyrix 486slc-25MHz	47.23
Aspen Personal 486		Cyrix 486slc-25MHz	43.65
Keydata Keynote 486slc-25	Cyrix 486slc-25MHz	43.55
Compaq Prolinea 3/25 2s		Intel386 sx-25MHz 	41.35 **
Micro Express NB486slc/25	Cyrix 486slc-25MHz	41.15
Grid 1755/486slc		Cyrix 486slc-25MHz	37.31

** no cache (on or off chip)

It just means that you need to be careful when buying a machine that has
the numbers "486" on the name plate.  The system may have 486 in the
name and may execute "all the 486 instructions" but the thing that is
missing is 486 performance.  That may change for the Cyrix 486DLC but I
don't have any application performance results that would allow me to
may any conclusions other than to expect Cyrix 486DLC performance 
similar to the Intel386 DX at equivalent frequencies.

rod
>-- 
>bill davidsen, GE Corp. R&D Center; Box 8; Schenectady NY 12345
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Rod Skinner				I speak for myself only.
Intel Corp
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