🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan26.150315.5641@newsgate.sps.mot.com> jennings@ssdt-tempe.sps.mot.com (Tim Jennings) writes:
> 
> I am currently trying to decide between buying a system with 
> an Intel motherboard vs one with a Cyrix board. Difference of
> about $200. I wish to know what is different between these 2
> processors. Am I likely to run into any compatibility problems 
> with hardware later?
> 

I can't say that I have any first hand experience with the Cyrix/TI
chips, but my guess is that if there were _any_ major problems with
them, Intel would have made the world _very_ aware of them.  (And we
would have seen complaints on the net...)


The scoop seems to be that the Cyrix chips and the TI chips (which are
really Cyrix designs), implement the full 486 architecture with _very_
few exceptions.  The differences between the Cyrix chips and Intels
are less significant that some of the differences between various mask
revisions of some of the Intel chips.  (i.e., the 32-bit multiply
problem with the 386, the tan problem with the 486, the over heating
problem with the 486-50, etc...)


The Cyrix chips do run slower than the "equivalent" Intel chips due
too their smaller cache, having to have an off chip floating point
processor and because they run with a 386 type memory bus.  This _may_
be significant for your application, on the other hand, it may not.
Try to get BAPco SYSmark or SPECmark numbers of the machines in
question if you can.  (but you probably can't.  *sigh*)


$200 is a fair amount of money, and I might be tempted to use that
$200 to by more memory, or a larger hard disk even if it ment having a
slower CPU...



-wayne