Re: PII/PIII vs. Alpha
My thoughts are that they would not be the same at similar clock speed
because alpha is RISC and x86 is CISC. I would think that it takes less
clock cycles to perform an action in CISC then RISC, because a bunch
(sometimes use less?) opcodes are in x86, which also accounts for RISC
needing more RAM, hd space, etc because it does take more opcodes for some
instructions. BUT, like Goswin pointed out, it depends on the source code
and compiler, because Alpha has more registers to play with then x86, so
it has the potential to have fast, tight code that doesn't need to access
memory as much. I did asm on x86 and only looked at Alpha
asm (most of my new code is done in C/C++ now to make my source cross
platform), so I may be wrong. There are tons of factors, but if you need
64 bit, or want a great machine to help you get rid of bad 32 bit x86
habits, go with Alpha, who cares about similar clock speed.
Machines should be based on what you need and run. Besides, how
do you compare the new room tempature 1ghz alpha chip to x86?
Paul
Why live in the past, when 64 bit is the future...
Alpha Debian Linux Powered
On 19 Jul 1999, Goswin Brederlow wrote:
> Oliver.Kowalke@freudenberg.de writes:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I heard that a PII/PIII 450 ... 550 MHz will outperform my Alpha-System
> > (LX164, 21164 533MHz)?
> > thx!,
> >
> > Oliver
>
> My Amiga (68060/50) can outperform you alpha system if I write the
> test case.
>
> In general thats not true.
>
> Also the PII/PIII can be faster but also can be much slower than your
> Alpha. It just depends on the program used and the quality of code and
> compiler.
>
> May the Source be with you.
> Goswin
>
>
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