From owner-freebsd-hardware Tue Aug 6 15:07:28 1996 Return-Path: owner-hardware Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id PAA03541 for hardware-outgoing; Tue, 6 Aug 1996 15:07:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from GndRsh.aac.dev.com (GndRsh.aac.dev.com [198.145.92.241]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id PAA03527 for ; Tue, 6 Aug 1996 15:07:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from rgrimes@localhost) by GndRsh.aac.dev.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id PAA03997; Tue, 6 Aug 1996 15:04:28 -0700 From: "Rodney W. Grimes" Message-Id: <199608062204.PAA03997@GndRsh.aac.dev.com> Subject: Re: P6 Natoma chipset To: smp@csn.net (Steve Passe) Date: Tue, 6 Aug 1996 15:04:28 -0700 (PDT) Cc: ken@gt.ed.net, hardware@FreeBSD.org In-Reply-To: <199608062058.OAA03750@clem.systemsix.com> from Steve Passe at "Aug 6, 96 02:58:32 pm" X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL11 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-hardware@FreeBSD.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Hi, > > > That particular Orion bug only affected the pre-B0 steppings of the > > chipset. From Rod Grimes: (7/17/96, freebsd-hardware) > > ... > > There > > is a fundemental flaw in the design of the chipset/CPU interface logic > > as well, that will never be fixed which has a significant impact on > > CPU/Memory bandwidth. > don't ignore this fact! Yes, please don't ignore the other problems with Orion. From my testing it looks as if Natoma is 2x faster at main memory access than Orion, or Triton, or Triton II. My customers are finally saying, yea, this performs more like what I expected :-) Bottom line, avoid Orion chipset based motherboards, at ANY stepping. I don't have any data on SMP Natoma boards, but the ASUS PCI/I-P6NP5 board is working like a champ for me and my clients. > > Has anyone seen the Pentium Pro chips with the 512K L2 cache? The > > only place I've seen them advertised is ALR. > http://www.atipa.com (8-05-96) > > Intel Pentium Pro 200 512K $1299 Heat Sink/Fan $15 > Intel Pentium Pro 200 256K $605 Heat Sink/Fan $15 Yea, right... $1299-$605 == $694.00, just don't seem right for an additonal 256K of cache. I've seen this and similiar numbers around, but no one can actuall say, ``YES'', I have a chip right here in my hand I can sell you. And as usual, expect that 512K price to drop substantially over the next 30 to 60 days... right now demand is 2 orders of magnitude higher than supply and thus is going to keep that price really high. > Intel Pentium 200 $720 Heat Sink/Fan $11 Opppss... another Intel Bogon, Pentium without any cache is more expensive than Pentium Pro with 256K of very fancy cache. Hummm.. go figure :-) I don't expect to see very good performance from a 3X clocked CPU, the 166Mhz Pentium already spends enough cycles stalled waiting for external cache/memory as is, increasing the core to 200Mhz is just going to aggrivate the main memory bottleneck. Now to my question... anyone seen a motherboard manufacturer who is _shipping_ a VIA VP-2 chipset based motherboard? Anyone actually have there hands on a P6-200/512K or a P5/200 CPU Chip? -- Rod Grimes rgrimes@gndrsh.aac.dev.com Accurate Automation Company Reliable computers for FreeBSD