These charts had been drawn from the IBM Vintage PCs table, which includes only "family one" (PC/XT, PC/AT) and PS/2 systems, but here PS/1s and PS/VPs, which were introduced in 1992, have also been kept into account. Fastest available systems have been taken into consideration.
Of course, calculating CPU speed is ... see my remarks on benchmarks.
For references please check my fastest available IBM PCs table.

Processor Speed

Gross Processor Speed I submit here that each x86 CPU is twice as fast as the previous one (thus a 386 is two times faster than a 286, which in turn is two times faster than a 8088). These values have been multiplied by each processor's actual clock speed. Of course, this esteem is very gross (for instance, it is known that a 386 CPU offers little advantages over a 286 at the same clock when executing 16-bit code).
Processor Speed in Dhrystones Source: CheckIt version 2.01. This implementation of dhrystone is 16-bit (otherwise it wouldn't run on 8088s and 286s).
Processor Speed in relative MHz Source: Landmark version 2.0 (also 16-bit). CPU throughput is given in equivalent 286-Mhz.

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This page was first published on the web on Nov. 11, 2001 Last revised Sept. 20, 2002