From owner-freebsd-hardware Tue Aug 11 01:11:19 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id BAA25753 for freebsd-hardware-outgoing; Tue, 11 Aug 1998 01:11:19 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from stingray.ivision.co.uk (stingray.ivision.co.uk [195.50.91.40]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id BAA25744 for ; Tue, 11 Aug 1998 01:11:09 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from manar@ivision.co.uk) Received: from pretender.ivision.co.uk [195.50.91.43] by stingray.ivision.co.uk with smtp (Exim 1.62 #2) id 0z69W0-0007QT-00; Tue, 11 Aug 1998 09:10:45 +0100 Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19980811091039.0084b5b0@stingray.ivision.co.uk> X-Sender: manarpop@stingray.ivision.co.uk X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 09:10:39 +0100 To: "Gregory P. Smith" From: Manar Hussain Subject: Re: cpu/motherboard recommendations Cc: Omar Thameen , freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <199808102341.QAA19134@ryouko.nas.nasa.gov> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org >I always recommend non-Intel (my personal bias). Tha's pretty much where we tend to sit too :) >The AMD K6-2 option will be a cheaper for the 100Mhz bus speed (the >important thing for a server; good I/O..). Keep in mind that the only >PII with 100Mhz bus speed is the expensive 400Mhz option. I'm sure If you're mainly after a 100Mhz bus with a decent CPU then the AMD will probably win as it's much cheaper than a PII solution so I'd agree there - but you don't need to get a 400Mhz PII to get a 100Mhz bus, you can get it with a 350Mhz PII. If CPU performance is very important and worth a fair premium then go for 400 Mhz PII. One of the things I like about the AMDs is that I get a wider choice of motherboards. For example - it wounds like this is the kind of machine that you plan to put a lot of RAM into - you thus need to make sure that the second level cache covers all this RAM. If I were in the US I'd be very tempted by the AMD K6-2 with the California Graphics Photon 100 HC motherboard which has a 2Mb second level cache option that will let it cache pretty much up to 1/2 Gb of RAM (see http://www.anandtech.com/reviews/motherboards/california_graphics/photon100h c-1mb-atx.html) - alas these are difficult to get in the UK at the moment :( There are AMDs with better on-chip cache options due out relatively soon. Manar To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message