Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1999 00:40:50 +0100 From: Stefan Esser <se@mi.uni-koeln.de> To: Narvi <narvi@haldjas.folklore.ee> Cc: fn@hungry.com, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, Stefan Esser <se@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Winchip. Message-ID: <19990108004050.A347@dialup124.mi.uni-koeln.de> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.990107125335.5112d-100000@haldjas.folklore.ee>; from Narvi on Thu, Jan 07, 1999 at 12:55:39PM %2B0200 References: <19990107051341.27476.qmail@terror.hungry.com> <Pine.BSF.3.96.990107125335.5112d-100000@haldjas.folklore.ee>
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On 1999-01-07 12:55 +0200, Narvi <narvi@haldjas.folklore.ee> wrote: > On 6 Jan 1999 fn@hungry.com wrote: > > Does FreeBSD work on Winchip systems? > > > > A cursory examination of the mailing list archives (and /sys/i386/i386/*) > > didn't reveal anything related to it. > > Haven't tested it - it is just not possible here to get any alternative > x86 chips but AMD, and then probably only because of a big bunch of crazy > overclockers. > > But I guess it should work OK, provided you have options CPU_486 & > CPU_386 in the kernel. I recently received 10 old original IBM Pentium machines (for free ;-) with P75 CPUs, and replaced those with WinChip W2/240 CPUs (at 4*60MHz, since those systems had 64MB of 70ns DRAM, and I was afraid they might not run with an 66MHz external clock ;-) The speed-up is impressive, a factor of 3 in some benchmark I tried. Just this evening I started the first "make world" on one of those PCs, but don't have timing results, yet. The WinChip needs a fan (those IBM machines have just a LARGE heat-sink and a fan in the front of the desktop case, this has worked so far) and a switched power regulator most probably is a plus, too. At $55 a piece, the WinChip is a good choice for 3.3V only mainboards, but I'd rather get me an AMD K6, if your mainboard supports dual-voltage CPUs. The kernel is built with CPU_686, BTW. The primary cache of the WinChip supports write-allocation, and I plan to add the necessare detection and configuration code when I have some spare time. Regards, STefan To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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