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Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 03:16:22 -0700 (PDT)
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To: owner-crp@tssc.co.nz
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In-reply-to: <3.0.32.19970721101544.006c0e1c@mailhost> (message from Dave Clarke on Mon, 21 Jul 1997 10:15:44 +1200)
Subject: Re: Best Pentium / PPro
From: asami@cs.berkeley.edu (Satoshi Asami)
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 * Has anyone got any comments on the the following combinations of
 * motherboard and CPU for FreeBSD ??

I thought there would be a thousand followups, but since nobody is
answering, let me add my NZD$0.04 (my guess from the prices below :)....

 * Asus P6NP5 with PPro 200		NZD$1,190
 * Asus P55T2P4 with P166		NZD$524
 * Asus P55T2P4 with P200 MMX		NZD$974

P55-200 (MMX) is not worth the price, go for P6-200 if you are willing
to spend NZD$1,000 or so.  Otherwise, the P54-166 should be an
excellent buy now.

Of course, you can get the AMD K6-200 (MMX) too.  Make sure to get it
from a place that offers 1-year warranty though. ;)

 * Change MBD to Asus TX97-... with above CPU's, add approx $60

Don't forget the 430TX-based boards can't cache more than 64MB on the
L2 cache.  Same for the VX.

 * Any comments with DIMM (10ns) vs EDO SIMM (60ns) memory, it seems like the
 * 10ns DIMM is not worth the extra money due to the PCI bus speed ??

No idea about SDRAM, I've never used them.  I'm not sure where the PCI 
bus fits into all this though, the memory bus is run independent of
PCI.  (The only dependency is that the former is usually an integer
multiple of the latter...so, if you get a 120/150/180 CPU, the PCI bus 
will run at 30MHz and the memory bus at 60MHz.)  For more info, go to
Tom's Hardware guide (http://sysdoc.pair.com/).

 * Is it better to get ATX or Standard form factor motherboard ??

If you are building a new computer, get ATX by all means.  Not only
does it have serial ports etc. on the board so you don't have an ugly
mess of cables inside your PC, but the CPU's are usually out of the
way of the expansion slots so you won't have the CPU heatsink/fan
getting in the way of a long card.  (Take a look at the pictures on
the manufacturers' web sites if you don't know what I mean, and try to
imagine yourself putting in an old #9 GXE64Pro PCI (about 25
centimeters long) into one of the PCI slots and see where the CPU fan
is.)

Satoshi