From owner-freebsd-hardware Sat Sep 12 15:28:46 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id PAA19927 for freebsd-hardware-outgoing; Sat, 12 Sep 1998 15:28:46 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-11.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.40]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id PAA19919 for ; Sat, 12 Sep 1998 15:28:32 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from dmlb@ragnet.demon.co.uk) Received: from [158.152.46.40] (helo=ragnet.demon.co.uk) by post.mail.demon.net with smtp (Exim 2.02 #1) id 0zHy9Q-0003up-00; Sat, 12 Sep 1998 22:28:16 +0000 Received: from dmlb by ragnet.demon.co.uk with local (Exim 1.82 #1) id 0zHwBD-0000Lk-00; Sat, 12 Sep 1998 21:21:59 +0100 Message-ID: X-Mailer: XFMail 1.2 [p0] on FreeBSD X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1998 21:21:59 +0100 (BST) From: Duncan Barclay To: spork Subject: Re: "Cacheable memory"?? Cc: freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Sender: owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org A few random comments about chipsets etc. A couple of months ago I was looking to upgrade and looked in the Super Socket 7 stuff a lot. The MVP3 is actually not very good. The VP3 is the orginal version and is okay, but doesn't do the 100MHz bus. THe MVP3 does, but the M stands for "Mobile". The MVP3 is a cut down version of a VP£ with some new features! I summize that VIA started development work on the VP3, once that got going started a project to develop a version attractive to laptop makers and did a cut down (i.e. smaller package -> less pins -> less address lines), but this coincided with the Super Socket 7 specs. so they did the design for 100MHz. The design of the VP3 was too far gone to add the 100MHz stuff (maybe process). The Ali chipsets, however, look much better. In general all of the buffers etc. on the ALi 5 are twice as big as the MVP3, this may result in better system performance. The ALi chipset also has part of the RAM needed for the cache on chip (the tag RAM). This will help cost/stability, but not necessarily speed. Given a choice I would buy a Ali 5 chipset (Aladdin also re-spun the chipset to help a boot problem with FreeBSD, that's what I call support). Duncan PS. In the end I went for a TX MB, at the time the only Super 7 boards were MVP3 in the UK and where a bit flaky. The Tx had the advantage of being dirt cheap and providing me with lots of PCI and no AGP (I have a nice Millenium which would be a shame to waste). --- ________________________________________________________________________ Duncan Barclay | God smiles upon the little children, dmlb@ragnet.demon.co.uk | the alcoholics, and the permanently stoned. ________________________________________________________________________ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message