Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 14:04:26 -0700 (PDT) From: "Rodney W. Grimes" <rgrimes@GndRsh.aac.dev.com> To: petzi@zit.th-darmstadt.de (Michael Beckmann) Cc: spork@super-g.com, isp@freebsd.org, hardware@freebsd.org Subject: Re: INN history file and disk I/O Message-ID: <199609182104.OAA04861@GndRsh.aac.dev.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.NEB.3.94.960918212328.12736A-100000@zit1.zit.th-darmstadt.de> from Michael Beckmann at "Sep 18, 96 09:48:00 pm"
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> Hi there, > > > We'll be building a new news server here rather soon, and I was wondering > > if anyone in on this discussion has any preferences in motherboards and > > dealers... Our usual supplier is having some trouble coming up with a > > recommendation on a RAM-packed motherboard... > > I have made very good experiences with the Gigabyte 586 HX mainboard. I > have built several machines with it. It has 6 SIMM slots. I have only used Buyer beware, Gigabyte is playing games with the specifications and register usage of the Triton-I and Triton-II chipsets to get away with these 6 SIMM slots. These chip sets have 8 programmable DRAM row size registers, each _SIDE_ of a SIMM requires one of them to be programmed, you can _ONLY_ run 4 double sided simms with these chip sets. Gigabyte dirty little move is to _ONLY_ allow single sided SIMMS in 2 of the sockets, thus the max memory is REALLY 4 * 32MB + 2 * 16MB == 160MB for Triton-I and 64MB * 6 == 384MB for Triton-II (64MB simms are single row simms if they use 64MB technology chips on them). > it with 32 MB SIMMs so far, and it works very well. According to a test in > a very reputable German computer magazine, it performs slightly better > than the Asus counterpart, which has only 4 SIMM slots. The test also says > that this board is among the few that boot with 64 MB SIMMs installed. > If you equip the board with a 16 kbyte Tag RAM it will extend the > L2 cacheable area to 512 MB. The cacheable area becomes important when you It's not 16kbyte of tag you need, it is 11 bit wide tags you need, see the Intel 439HX databooks. ASUS also supports this, but it is a little trickier to do and I am trying to accertain some optional ways of doing it. > have that much RAM. Almost all motherboards do not L2 cache more than 64 > megabytes. I think that 6 x 64 MB = 384 MB will make a good newsserver :-) > With a P 166 or P 200 it outperforms e.g. a SPARC 20 easily. > > Another option is the Asus Double Pentium board, which has 8 SIMM slots. > The second Pentium is not supported by FreeBSD (and you don't need it for > a news server), but I would still consider it because of the 8 SIMM slots > and the good Asus support and quality. My experience with the PCI/E-P55T2P4D is that it won't reliably run more than 6 simms unless they happen to be single sided 12 chip or less simm modules. :-(. > > Hope this helps. Don't buy crap. And as a final note, AAC has disqualified Gigabyte as a MB supplier 4 times. Every time a new board comes out from them my local distributor swears it is the best thing since sliced bread, so I bring in a couple of them for my 2 week eval process... welll... Gigabyte has never made it to my qualified parts list :-( Oh, and of course YMMV... -- Rod Grimes rgrimes@gndrsh.aac.dev.com Accurate Automation Company Reliable computers for FreeBSD
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