Date:         Mon, 15 Apr 1996 16:28:24 GMT
Reply-To:     stow@SKYFOX.USASK.CA
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>
From:         stow@SKYFOX.USASK.CA
Organization: University of Saskatchewan
Subject:      Re: Pentium or Pentium Pro system

In a previous article, "Li-Ping Yuan (403)422-1927" <YUAN@ENR.GOV.AB.CA> wrote:
>Is there a significant performance difference between Pentium and
>Pentium Pro systems for SAS?  Any other comments on comparing the two?
>
>TIA
>
>Li-Ping Yuan
>Alberta Geological Survey
 
About all I can say is that SAS 6.10 with Windows for WorkGroups 3.11 runs
at about the same speeds on a Pentium 133 with 512 KB external cache as it
does on a Pentium Pro 150 (with 256 KB built in cache).  And no, the
Pentium 133's larger cache probably doesn't help it much:  the test data
sets were so large that caches were probably not of much help to either cpu.
The caches would only help if they could prevent cached instructions from
being overwritten by data as the data sets were processed.
 
However, if you use a 32 bit OS (such as OS/2 or NT ) and a 32 bit version
of SAS made for  that OS  I am sure that the Pentium Pro would
significantly outperform a Pentium of the same speed running the same OS
and the same version of SAS.