From owner-freebsd-questions Sat Jul 5 19:27:01 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA00338 for questions-outgoing; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 19:27:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.sns.com (jack.sns.com [199.35.183.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA00333 for ; Sat, 5 Jul 1997 19:26:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from speedy.pcscons.net by mail.sns.com with smtp (Smail3.1.28.1 #5) id m0wkgpz-000QB3C; Sat, 5 Jul 97 19:14 PDT Message-Id: <3.0.2.32.19970705191238.00828c80@mail.sns.com> X-Sender: ludwigp@mail.sns.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.2 (32) Date: Sat, 05 Jul 1997 19:12:38 -0700 To: Michael Alwan , Shawn Ramsey From: Ludwig Pummer Subject: Re: EDO vs non-parity RAM Cc: Don Wilde , Carey Nairn , questions@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <33BEEF6C.EB4D4427@rma.edu> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-questions@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk At 09:05 PM 7/5/97 -0400, Michael Alwan wrote: >Shawn Ramsey wrote: >> >> Also, if you board doesnt support parity RAM, and is an Intel chipset, it >> won't cache more than 64MB of RAM! The only decent Intel chipset really is >> the HX chipset. (Supports ECC and 512MB of cachable RAM) > >Enlighten me: how does a motherboard "cache" RAM? My Biostar 8500TUC >has the HX chipset, but according to the manual, *supports* just 128MB >of RAM, and can only *cache* 64MB of RAM. (Obviously the motherboard >must itself be constucted to take advantage of the chipset.) Is there >any point in putting more than 64MB on the motherboard? Will more than >64MB of data just swap out to virtual memory, even if I have more than >64MB of RAM? > >Michael The motherboard must support 128MB, and a "tag SRAM" chip must be put on the motherboard to allow it to cache more than 64MB of RAM. And I don't know what cacheing the RAM does, except that it _does_ increase system performance. I learned all this from Tom's Hardware Guide (http://sysdoc.pair.com). --Ludwig Pummer ------------------------------------------------------------------ ludwigp@bigfoot.com ICQ UIN: 692441 http://chipweb.home.ml.org PGP Key & Geek Code available on web page ^-- Updated 07/01/97