>From: Walt Mankowski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: Mersenne discussion list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: Re: Mersenne: 386SX
>Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2000 19:52:51 -0500
>
>On Sat, Mar 04, 2000 at 04:30:34PM -0800, John R Pierce wrote:
> > > > phew. a 386sx is SO slow I really can't imagine WHAT useful
> > computational
> > > > work it could do... Thats a 25 or so MHz CPU with a 16 bit bus that
> > > > probably takes 5-6 clocks to do a simple integer operation. Oh, and
>its
> > got
> > > > no floating point. I'd estimate it at least a few 100 times slower
> > than
> > > > even a slow celeron at numerical work. No, wait. make that several
> > > > THOUSAND times slower.
> > >
> > > It might be able to work on one of the distributed.net projects. I
> > > don't *think* the rc5 stuff uses floating point.
> >
> > it doesn't.
>
>As far as I can tell from the information available at
>www.distributed.net, it does. There is quite a bit of client speed
>data at http://n0cgi.distributed.net/speed/, including a variety of
>different 386SX processors.
I will check that information.
>
> > However, even at 32 bit integer programming, figure the 16 bit 386SX
>will be
> > around 4-8 times slower than a 486 at the same clock speed, which in
>turn is
> > 3-4 times slower than a pentium at the same clock speed. now throw in
>the
> > differential between the 16-25MHz range of the typical 386SX to the
> > 400-600Mhz of a modern celeron or pentium or k6 today and we can figure
> > ANOTHER 20X slower. 386SX systems didn't use any level 2 cache either,
>and
> > only had like 8k of level 1 cache, and the 386SX memory bus took 2-3
>clocks
> > minimum to transfer 16 bits with no burst cycle support.
> >
> > All told, that 386SX will be something like 100 times slower than a
>bottom
> > of the barrel Celeron or K6 system and probably draw at least as much
>power.
>
>According to the dnet client speed page, a 386SX-33 can do about
>16,000 RC5 keys/sec. My P3-450 can do about 1,264,000 kps. That's
>less than 80 times faster.
>
>Walt
16 K keys/sec would take about 4 1/3 hours to do one block of keys. That is
an output that would allow one to see the machine's placement in stats on a
daily basis running packets of 1, 2 or 4 blocks. I am tempted to say that
D.Net would be the best choice.
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