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Technology Stocks : CYRIX / NSM -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (23082)	1/19/1998 10:01:00 AM
From: Steve Porter	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 33344

Jim, How would you feel about a 266MHZ M2? It should only be about 3 months now.. Steve CYRIX/NSM RULE!

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (23082)	1/19/1998 12:01:00 PM
From: Scott Sterling	Respond to of 33344

> To me, there has to be some inherent reason why > the M2 can't run at equal clockspeeds to the Pentium > or Pentium II other than process technology I believe there is Jim. As others have stated on this thread (long ago), the only true method of comparing two processors is to run them on the same (or technologically equivalent) process, making note of the yields and clock speeds achieved, and then benchmarking them with a benchmark that accurately reflects typical uses for them. An invalid approach would be for example to take three processors and run them all at 166Mhz. If this were to be done, it would not take into consideration optimizations that are made for clock speed. Since the Pentium II is designed with many smaller pipeline stages in order to allow higher clock rates given the same process, and the Cyrix M2 is designed to get more processing per clock tick, such a comparison would inevitably (and incorrectly) find that the M2 was a superior design, the P II a poor design, and the K6, somewhere in between. But when purchasing a processor, the correct way to choose is by price/performance (except for the minority of cases which demand performance even at high price). This takes into consideration everything a company has to offer (including outrageous profit margins, if applicable). So far Cyrix and AMD have been ahead in this area, even if mostly due to lower profit margins.