Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2002 23:50:00 -0400 (EDT) From: Chuck Robey <chuckr@chuckr.org> To: "David O'Brien" <obrien@FreeBSD.ORG> Cc: "George V. Neville-Neil" <gnn@neville-neil.com>, <freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Recommended MP development machines... Message-ID: <20020703233926.N66398-100000@april.chuckr.org> In-Reply-To: <20020703202553.A12306@dragon.nuxi.com>
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On Wed, 3 Jul 2002, David O'Brien wrote: > On Wed, Jul 03, 2002 at 07:43:22PM -0700, George V. Neville-Neil wrote: > > I know everyone says "they all work" but i'd like some recommendations on > > MP machines for -CURRENT work. I'll be ordering one this week. > > There is but _1_ dual system to get -- Tyan Thunder K7 (code name Guinness). > http://www.tyan.com/products/html/thunderk7.html. It comes in multiple > flavors, but mine is the dual-channel Ultra160, dual-3com 10/100, 5-64bit > PCI, 1 AGP version. You can cheap out and not get the non-SCSI S2462NG > model. Match this bad-boy up with a pair of fast Athlon `MP' (not `XP') > CPU's and it is a totally solid system. Various FreeBSD committers also > have this system. > > There is a newer [more economic] version called the Thunder K7X. > http://www.tyan.com/products/html/thunderk7x.html "more economic" is a poor way to describe it, seeing as it has all the features, plus (1) an updated version of the AMD mp chipset and (2) a fixed onboard usb port. The K7 had a broken on-board usb (the AMD chipset had a PCI contention bug for the usb port, so the tin back panel of the board blocked out the usb, and the K7 came with a PCI usb card, which ate up one of your PCI slots. The K7X has a repaired on-board usb, so you get that PCI slot back. The main difference in the updated chipset is the fact that the 64 bit PCI slots now run at double-speed, giving double the throughput. No change for the 32 bit PCI slots. At least for me, the main usage of the 64 bit slot would be the disk; seeing as both the K7 and the K7X can be had with a very nice dual channel Adaptec Ultra160 controller, which means you don't use the 64 bit PCI slot for disk, that kills that. Added cost for the controller is about $100, not a bad deal. I think the K7 had only AGP; the K7X has AGP-Pro; doesn't mean much yet, but if you're a gaming maven, maybe it'll be important pretty quickly now. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chuck Robey | Interests include C & Java programming, FreeBSD, chuckr@chuckr.org | electronics, communications, and signal processing. New Year's Resolution: I will not sphroxify gullible people into looking up fictitious words in the dictionary. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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