020 030 040?

[Claw22000]

If I understand this right each of these processors are twice as fast as their previous versions at the same Mhz?

If I'm wrong please correct me so I can understand this better.

Thanks

[mech]

Originally Posted by Claw22000

If I understand this right each of these processors are twice as fast as their previous versions at the same Mhz?

If I'm wrong please correct me so I can understand this better.

Thanks

I don't know if i would say twice as fast as the previous,but each series you move up is a good speed gain. for example the 030/50 vs 040/40 is quite a difference.
Design of the accelerator in general makes quite a difference also.

[rkauer]

The 020 & 030 are almost the same processor. Minor upgrade on the way registers wands around and bit speed increase.

The 040 is another story. A 25MHz unit will surpass a 50MHz clocked 030 with both legs tied to the back.

Only for information purposes on the 680x0 family:

68000 is the the first, count it as a major revision.

Odd x number means a minor revision, so the 010 is a bit better than the 000, 030 is a bit better than 020 (more speed clock possibility, internal MMU).

The 040 & 060 doesn't have minor revisions, albeit the fact the 060 is just a 040 with dual pipeline and more clock (IIRC, Motorola almost labelled the 060 as 68050).

[Claw22000]

So its like 286 386 486. Where the big jump was from 286 to 386 bit from 386 to 486 not so much till the DX series. Pretty interesting. Thanks for the tidbits.

[Hewitson]

I personally found the upgrade from 386 to 486 much more beneficial than going from a 286 to a 386..

Then again, the 386 was an SX (did they even make a 386DX?)

[8bitbubsy]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

did they even make a 386DX?

Yes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_80386#i386DX

[OverDose]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

I personally found the upgrade from 386 to 486 much more beneficial than going from a 286 to a 386..

Then again, the 386 was an SX (did they even make a 386DX?)

That reminds me of the friend who went for the higher clocked 386 over a 486, because more megahertz = faster. This is something that still hasn't gone away, entirely (like comparing a Pentium 3.2GHz against an i7 2GHz).

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

Then again, the 386 was an SX (did they even make a 386DX?)

At the beginning only 386 was present - later they (Intel) add cheaper 386 with external 16 bit data bus ie SX, normal 386 was named DX (due full 32 bit bus) - later 486 was available as SX and DX but only one difference was lack of the FPU unit (on 486SX disabled on die - faulty silicon area and introduced 487 CPU with modification that required 486 on MoBo anyway)

Originally Posted by OverDose

That reminds me of the friend who went for the higher clocked 386 over a 486, because more megahertz = faster. This is something that still hasn't gone away, entirely (like comparing a Pentium 3.2GHz against an i7 2GHz).

386DX 40MHz was comparable to 486SX 20 - 25MHz

[Claw22000]

Yes I remember that stupid rizer addon. I also remember thinking it was a waist of time considering when it came out pent 66mhz were out which was the 586. Intel wasn't alowed to patent the number hence there change to pentium.

[OverDose]

Originally Posted by Claw22000

Intel wasn't alowed to patent the number hence there change to pentium.

Trademark, not patent

The purpose of trademarks is to protect branding (and they last as long as you keep using them, unlike a patent which runs out after a number of years). The problem was people like AMD were releasing chips with the 386 486 numbers, and when it went to court the judge says, yes they can do that because you can't trademark a number.

The effect was that Intel was spending money marketing their 386, 486 etc 'brand', and other companies were piggy-backing on this. The judge said that there was nothing legal to stop this. So, Intel said feck this for a game of skittles, and spent big moola making and promoting their new 'Pentium' brand.

Now since they couldn't use numbers of the chips to say 'bigger number = better' they started to put more emphasis on the other numbers like clock speed. Pretty much until the early P4s and the Pentium M, it was always the case that bigger number = faster CPU.