Date: Mon, 1 Jul 1996 08:24:16 -0700 (PDT) From: "Rodney W. Grimes" <rgrimes@GndRsh.aac.dev.com> To: count@key.hole.fi (Bror 'Count' Heinola) Cc: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Pentium Pro question Message-ID: <199607011524.IAA19697@GndRsh.aac.dev.com> In-Reply-To: <199607011048.NAA05413@key.hole.fi> from Bror 'Count' Heinola at "Jul 1, 96 01:48:00 pm"
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> Would someone care to enlighten me about the pros and cons > of the Pentium Pro chipsets currently available? I'll try, given the limited data on the 440FX chipset that I have at this time. > For example, ASUS offers two boards, P6NP5 with 440FX chipset and > P6RP4 with 450KX chipset. What are the differences and do they > _matter_ in real-life use? The 450KX is known as the ``Orion'' chipset, until stipping B0 it has some rather serious bugs, the worst one is with respect to PCI bus master devices, namely they can't bus master at >4.4MB/sec. The pro to this chipset is that it can do 2 and 4 way memory interleaving which _should_ give it a really fast memory bandwidth, but I have yet to see anyone produce great results here, this may be that I haven't seen any test results for B0 chipsets. The 440FX is known as the ``Natoma'' chipset, it is very new so there is not much data on it. One known missing feature is memory interleaving was left out of this chip set. You can buy a P6RP4 today, the P6NP5 will not be shipping in volume until ``some time in July''. The XP6NP5 is shipping in limit volume now (this is an ATX form factor board and requires ATX power supply and an ATX case to put it in. > The system would be a nfs/sm server with > Adaptec 3940 and (at least) four SCSI disks and 100M ethernet. If you go P6RP4 make darn sure that you have the B0 or later chipset, anything before that will fail misserably with the 100Mbs ethernet card. I wish I had more data on the Natoma chipset, but that only comes with time. > Every clue is appreciated! > > -- > Bror 'Count' Heinola % count@key.hole.fi % http://pobox.com/~count/ > Pengerkatu 13b A5 % IRC: Count NIC: BH271 % > FI-00530 HELSINKI % Work: bror@sms.fi % Roads? Where we're going, > Cell: +358-40-5533-554 % Santa Monica Software % we don't need roads. > -- Rod Grimes rgrimes@gndrsh.aac.dev.com Accurate Automation Company Reliable computers for FreeBSD
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