From owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Dec 14 03:35:24 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 24DDE16A4CE for ; Tue, 14 Dec 2004 03:35:24 +0000 (GMT) Received: from nuumen.pair.com (nuumen.pair.com [209.68.1.119]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id A714343D46 for ; Tue, 14 Dec 2004 03:35:23 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from thuppi@nuumen.pair.com) Received: (qmail 49735 invoked by uid 55300); 14 Dec 2004 03:35:23 -0000 Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 22:35:23 -0500 (EST) From: Tom Huppi X-X-Sender: thuppi@nuumen.pair.com To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Subject: SMP mini-ITX board... X-BeenThere: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: General discussion of FreeBSD hardware List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 03:35:24 -0000 ...and some general Via hardware questions. I'm in the planning stage of an upgrade to my aging hardware, and have some general technical questions that I hope someone may be able to theorize about to help me determine if it might be 'worth the wait'. The mini-ITX form factor appeals to me as an always-up workstation. In looking around, I spot a dual-processor board from Via (epia-dp) which, I suspect, will be vaporware for at least another couple of quarters but I have hope that it would materialize eventually. If not, the epia-sp model is already on the market, and the cn400<->vt8237 chipset looks on paper to be relatively impressive compared Via's earlier offerings. I've recently taken up a hobby that requires actual crunching ability so it may make more sense to invest in a separate 'mainstream' system to attack the heavyweight problems on an as-needed basis. Firstly, I've not found a whole lot of info about the hardware but there are some general peeks at prototype boards, and some general info about the chipset. http://www.epiacenter.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=405 http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/chipsets/c-series/cn400/ Here are my questions: - Nehemiah CPU/{Via northbridge} MP vs. FreeBSD SMP impl. Can anyone enlighten or theorize about if it may 'work' or not, and how well compared to 'reference' SMP hardware. - vt8237 USB2: I have (will have) a device which squirts data over the USB as fast as possible. I understand that some motherboards have inferior USB2 controllers. For the life of me, I cannot find many actual benchmark tests of this. Anyone know off hand whether Via's vt8237 USB is any good (+ as supported under FreeBSD.) - vt8237 GigE: Via makes noise about their 1Ghz northbridge<->southbridge interconnect (cn400/vt8237), but doesn't say much about their vt8237<->'Via connectivity' interface shown on the above diagram. It appears that their GigE implementation, pci(-x?), and a lot of other things (although *not* SATA happily), are driven through this interface. GigE support seems to requires an extra chip ('VIA Velocity'). Any thoughts on the architecture and/or experience with FreeBSD driver support here? Thanks for any thoughts on any of these subjects, - Tom