...has been pretty good.  I don't run 586, but got a chip that's fairly 
close to a P75 (they say) on the cheap.  A new AMD 486 120 MHz chip and 
off-brand motherboard for about $240 a few months ago.  It's probably 
cheaper now.

Here's some relative (can't find any absolutes to compare to) benchmark 
results on a few tests.  My old system was an Intel 486DX33 chip.  Both 
systems have equal memory and disk setups.  

The utility was BYTE UNIX Benchmarks (Version 3.11) and both tests were 
run in single-user mode.  Both systems had/have the exact same SIMMs
and disk setups.  I've enclosed a synopsis of the results to keep things
as brief as possible.  There is also the different MB's to consider, one 
key thing is that I have twice the cache RAM now (256k).  But buying new 
cache RAM is cheap, thankfully, so shouldn't be a big concern for the 
tightly-budgeted "upgrader."

Intel 486DX33:
*************
Dhrystone 2 without register variables    30835.6 lps   (10 secs, 6 samples)
Arithmetic Test (type = arithoh)          62499.8 lps   (10 secs, 6 samples)
Arithmetic Test (type = float)             2736.6 lps   (10 secs, 6 samples)
System Call Overhead Test                  9947.7 lps   (10 secs, 6 samples)
File Read  (10 seconds)                   21311.0 KBps  (10 secs, 6 samples)
File Read  (30 seconds)                   26527.0 KBps  (30 secs, 6 samples)
C Compiler Test                              21.6 lpm   (60 secs, 3 samples)
Dc: sqrt(2) to 99 decimal places            603.3 lpm   (60 secs, 6 samples)
Recursion Test--Tower of Hanoi              485.6 lps   (10 secs, 6 samples)

AMD 486DX120:
************* 
Dhrystone 2 without register variables   111075.8 lps   (10 secs, 6 samples)
Arithmetic Test (type = arithoh)         227744.2 lps   (10 secs, 6 samples)
Arithmetic Test (type = float)             9952.7 lps   (10 secs, 6 samples)
System Call Overhead Test                 37412.5 lps   (10 secs, 6 samples)
File Read  (10 seconds)                   70221.0 KBps  (10 secs, 6 samples)
File Read  (30 seconds)                   88161.0 KBps  (30 secs, 6 samples)
C Compiler Test                              50.9 lpm   (60 secs, 3 samples)
Dc: sqrt(2) to 99 decimal places           1599.0 lpm   (60 secs, 6 samples)
Recursion Test--Tower of Hanoi             1783.7 lps   (10 secs, 6 samples)


Again, these are relative, but it's a nice improvement to go to the faster 
CPU.  Of course, you can never have too fast a system, so I'm always 
considering an upgrade.  Going Intel again might not be too bad...I just
read last week in Info World that Intel is cutting prices 25% across
their entire CPU line.

--
Matthew B. Wood                                               mbwood@netcom.com

  "Hello, Hello Kitty", said Tuxedo Sam. 
  A voice answered back, louder than a thousand rock concerts, with words
which seemed to stretch from pole to pole, from the lowest hell to the
highest heaven: "I AM HELLO KITTY, DESTROYER OF WORLDS!"