Re: Flame-o-Rama! (was Re: ZipGS 12MHz on ROM

[jimwong@owlnet.rice.edu (Jim Wong)]

In article <bazyarCp04A4.3tJ@netcom.com>, bazyar@netcom.com (Jawaid Bazyar) writes:
|>   Leaving out floating point, and ignoring the fact that a 12MHz _GS_
|> is not the same as a 12MHz 65816, the 12MHz 65816 would keep up pretty
|> well with such a monster chip as a 040/40. Of course, the 040/40
|> can move 32 bits in one memory fetch (which is several cycles, usually)
|> and that is the main disadvantage of 8-bit bus architectures. 

Well, floating point performance is a somewhat important
characteristic to leave out, even if it's not crucial to most mundane
tasks.  The 040 also has an onboard MMU, more registers, an on-chip
cache, and ALU operations that work on 32-bit values. (Of course,
not all these features directly affect performance).

|>   A IIGS built around a 12MHz 65816 (from scratch, no intermediate
|> cache) and running the existing system software would fly so fast
|> you wouldn't know what to do with yourself :-)

I'd love to see such a system, but the odds of one being built are
vanishingly small.

|>   Also, let's not forget that a 20MHz 816 costs $100, and a 40Mhz 040
|> costs $500. It's not just performance, it's price/performance.

True.  Is any work still being done on the development of the 65816?
Has anyone ever run any toy benchmarks (like the frequently cited
SPECint and SPECfp suites) on a 816?  I'd be interested in seeing how
one would perform.

-- 
Jim Wong (jimwong@owlnet.rice.edu)