> >Those are probably just whichever 3M-area exponents got assigned
> >to 286s and 386s :-)
> I wonder about that, however. A 286 can't run Prime95, and a 386
> would require a 387, right?
First off, a 286 in order to do floating point math needs a math
coprocessor. The model of math coprocessor that goes along with a
80286 is the 80287 not a 387. But, Prime95 only runs on Windows95, and
Windows95 only runs on 386s and higher so there are no 286s out there
running Prime95.
The lowest end 386 is the 80386SX-16 running at a whopping 16 Mhz. 386
SX's have a 32 bit internal bus (making them Intel's first 32 bit
processor) and a 16 bit external bus. The 386DX is 32 bit inside and
out, but most of the 80386DX-16s out there have a major bug in them
that makes their external bus 16 bit just like the 386 SX. The CPUs
that have this bug are from 1985 and have a double sigma mark on them,
this distinguishes them from the working 386's.
So, anything 386 or higher will run Prime95. Lennart Grebelius has a
great benchmark page setup at:
http://www2.tripnet.se/~nlg/mersenne/benchmk.htm
Here he compares everything from a 386SX-16 to a P2-400 MHz (which is
540 times faster at running Prime95).
Personally I will not run Prime95 on anything less then a P5-166, and
I also will not run it on anything that does not have 32 MB or greater
of RAM. Not that Prime95 is a resource hog, far from it, I just don't
think it's worth my time to install it on anything slower then a 166,
and I don't think it is fair to the user of the machine to run a
program that requires 4 to 5 MB or RAM unless at least 32 MB is
present. But far be it from me to judge how you run it, this is just
my opinion.
-Marc
Marc Getty [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Department of Dental Informatics, Temple University
http://www.temple.edu/dentistry/di/ 215-204-7710
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