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From: Rashid  Karimov <rashid@rk.ios.com>
Message-Id: <199607040137.VAA16179@rk.ios.com>
Subject: Re: PentiumPro Motherboards
To: mcnab@bayarea.net
Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1996 21:37:56 -0400 (EDT)
Cc: questions@freebsd.org
In-Reply-To: <199607032344.QAA02671@baygate.bayarea.net> from "David McNab" at Jul 3, 96 04:44:12 pm
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		Hi there folx,

> 
>      I've been asked to find a good P6 m/b for use in a
> set of FreeBSD machines we're buying instead of our
> usual overpriced SGI's.  (No thanks, I would rather not
> pay $8,000 for 128MB of memory...)
> 
>      I've heard from reliable sources that the Intel
> Aurora (sorry, "Performance/AU") motherboard (sorry,
> "baseboard") works well with 200Mhz P6 (sorry,
> "PentiumPro") CPUs and FreeBSD.
> 
>      However, for some strange reason, I would /prefer/
> not to buy Intel boards.  So I've been looking at the
> ASUS P/E-P6RP7D board instead.  It looks fine, except
> that the PCI chipset is listed as "Intel 82450GX
> (Orion)", whereas the Intel documentation on the Aurora
> board says it uses the "82450 PCISet" chipset, the
> sub-components of which all seem to end with "KX".
> 
>      Anyone know if the PCI chipset on the ASUS board
> the same as on the Aurora?  Does the magic "GX" make
> all the difference?  Anyone actually own or use one of
> these ASUS boards?  (The main thing I'm concerned about
> is the PCI-write bug, although if there are other
> things to watch out for I'd like to hear about them.)

	PPRo's aren't used widely yet , therefore there's
	relative shortage of info on the topic.

	I do use use PPro here and I use it for quite a time now.
	Yes it works , works fast and you can use ASUS single-CPU
	boards but BE CAREFULT to get MBs with fixed stepping!
	I had to change mines here ( ASUS was kind enough to do it).

	What bothers me is that 99% of those PPro MBs
	have only 3 or 4 PIC slots on them. Stupid.

	I'd like to have 3 or 4 SCSI adapters and 2 Fast Ethernets
	per box.
	Alder has more , but then again it is not available :(
	ALR has allegedly nice 4 CPU MB, but looks noone has
	tested it yet under real OS , which FreeBSD is an example of :))


	Rashid.