Richard - Re:"which machine that you can buy today gives you the most
MIPS/$?"
Very interesting question. I don't have the data at my fingertips, so I can't give you a quick answer.
For simplicity, Intel rates all their chips with an iCOMP rating. I won't argue the merits of this - but it should provide relative performance ratings of INTEL's chips.
Next, a current PRICE LIST of Intel's chips needs to be obtained. Simply dividing the cost of the same Intel chip into its corresponding iCOMP value will give you a figure of merit for performance /price for INTEL ONLY.
However - one caveat - the CPU price represents a fraction of an overall system cost. This fraction probably ranges from 15% to 30% (my wild *ss guess).
Thus, in order to squeeze the MIPS/SPECINT2/JUICE out of a CPU, you need to surround it with large aamounts of cache memory, fast disk access, optimized bus structures, etc. These drive up the overall system cost.
The whole process can be mind boggling.
I would bet that obtaining a very CHEAP 386/486 system for just a few bucks might give the best performace/price. Give it a try.
Bear in mind - do you want a cost effective fast system - or do you want PERFORMANCE AT ANY "REASONABLE" cost.?
Also, as time marches on, costs go down and performance goes up. Any "answer" today will undoubtedly be wrong tomorrow.
Further - for those of us who remember DOS applications - SOFTWARE plays an enormous role in evaluating system performance. Any Windows application will be slow compared to a "comparable" DOS application. GUI interfaces, bloated code, high level languages all eat up CPU cycles. So, speed is relative.
Good luck with your decision process.
Paul |
