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To: Aled Morris <aledm@routers.co.uk>
cc: hackers@freebsd.org (Hackers; FreeBSD)
Subject: Re: Pentium Pro m/b bug question
In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 14 Mar 1996 15:40:30 GMT."
             <199603141649.QAA18159@deputy.pavilion.co.uk> 
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Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 20:57:39 -0800
From: "Russell L. Carter" <rcarter@geli.com>
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> 
> Unrelated question: can someone explain in simple terms why I shouldn't
> go out and buy a Pentium Pro system?  I understand from this list that
> there is some kind of motherboard bug which causes performance problems.
> What should I ask my vendor?  I was looking at a GW2K system, being
> a satisifed previous customer.
> 

Unless your vendor has implemented the fix described in

http://pentium.intel.com/procs/support/ppro/82450.htm

you will see the following performance ratios for a P6-200
vs. a P5-166 with PB-SRAM:

                                    P6/P5 (better than 1.0 expected)
Single Narrow-SCSI disk throughput   0.57
DRAM   bandwidth                     0.73
Single 100BASE-TX NIC throughput     0.44
CPU (ops/sec, all in cache)          3.50 <--- most benchmarks measure this.

Good luck,
Russell

> Aled
> --
> telephone +44 973 207987
>