From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Aug 16 17:16:11 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EBA4B37B401; Sat, 16 Aug 2003 17:16:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from adsl-63-198-35-122.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net (adsl-63-198-35-122.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net [63.198.35.122]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CD5A743F85; Sat, 16 Aug 2003 17:16:10 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from j_guojun@lbl.gov) Received: from lbl.gov (localhost.pacbell.net [127.0.0.1]) ESMTP id h7H0G9rG000381; Sat, 16 Aug 2003 17:16:10 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from j_guojun@lbl.gov) Sender: jin@adsl-63-198-35-122.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net Message-ID: <3F3EC949.4759F1A8@lbl.gov> Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2003 17:16:09 -0700 From: "Jin Guojun [NCS]" X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (X11; U; FreeBSD 4.8-RELEASE i386) X-Accept-Language: zh, zh-CN, en-US, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" References: <20030816102051.GB820@wantadilla.lemis.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: FreeBSD Hackers cc: FreeBSD hardware Users Subject: Re: nVIDIA nForece2, again X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2003 00:16:12 -0000 It is a vague problem on term of best performance -- what. NVidia has better memory bandwidth in AMD motherboards. However, if SATA is involved, some motherboard either lowed the memory bandwidth, or had other I/O issues. In terms of IDE performance, the AMD 760MP has the best performance in all chipsets in the world. 760 gives true 200 MB/s I/O IDE throughput, where most other chipsets only gives 100/133 MB/s on both IDE buses with 4 drives. As to onboard NIC, I do not see any performance problem on 100 Mb/s NIC. Maybe some NICs are not supported. The performance problem is on 1Gb/s NIC, especially Intel onboard NIC which chews 100% high-end CPUs. I have not had MSI K7N2 board yet. ASUS A7N8X is the similar one which works very good in most areas. I have not tested its IDE controller yet. VIA VT400 and VT600 are not very good on I/O performance. -Jin Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote: > My main machine has just fried a southbridge, and I'm looking for a > replacement. From what I can see, in the AMD range, the current best > performer is the nVIDIA nForece2. I've read Bill Paul's description > of the problems with the onboard NIC, and if I buy one of these > boards, I'll certainly swell his mailbox of disgruntled nVIDIA > customers. But at a more pragmatic level, a 100 Mb/s NIC costs > nothing, and I have a few spares floating around, so it's not that big > a deal. > > Looking at what our local suppliers have to offer, the MSI K7N2 Delta > boards > (http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/mbd/pro_mbd_detail.php?UID=436) > look reasonable, both in terms of performance and price. Does anybody > have any experience with them? Are there any other problems with the > chip set? I've heard that it has an IOAPIC on it, even for single > processors. Is this an issue? Any other comments? Based on what > I've read, I'd probably be putting a Barton 2600XP+ and 0.5 to 1 GB of > DDR memory into it. > > Greg > --