Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 21:34:37 -0700 From: "Michael L. VanLoon -- HeadCandy.com" <michaelv@HeadCandy.com> To: "Mikel Lindsaar" <mikel@esimene.cynet.net.au> Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Cyrix and AMD chips Message-ID: <199606190434.VAA18294@MindBender.HeadCandy.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 19 Jun 96 12:09:35 %2B1000. <199606190210.MAA15068@esimene.cynet.net.au>
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>Can anyone comment on the stability of these chips?
>It will be running FreeBSD-stable 2.1.0
AMD chips are awesome. They will work correctly with every
motherboard that runs correctly with Intel chips.
The new Cyrix 6x86 (Pentium replacement) is supposed to be a great
chip from all I've read. It's definitely faster than a Pentium at the
same clock speed (don't be fooled by the P-rating, though). I'm
pretty temted to get one since it's a good alternative to Intel.
AMD's K5 (their "6x86-ish" chip) is behind and is just coming out in
100MHz versions. I'm sure it'll be a great chip too when they can
finally produce fast versions of them in large quantities.
The Cyrix 5x86 sounds nice too. It actually has some design
enhancements beyond a normal 486. (The "5x86" chips are designed for
a 486 socket and motherboard.) The AMD 5x86 is just a 486DX4 with a
16K write-back cache and quad-clock instead of tripled clock. Still,
it's a hellishly fast 486. The AMD 5x86 133MHz is supposed to be
~75MHz Pentium in performance.
The whole Cyrix DLC controversy really doesn't apply to these newer
chips.
For what it's worth, I have been running NetBSD on an AMD 486DX2/80 in
an EISA motherboard for approximately two years, with excellent
results. I recently replaced it with an AMD 5x86/133, and that is
working just fine, as well (it's running in write-through mode; but my
L2 cache is write-back, so I don't take too much of a performance hit
for that). In some small benchmarks it's up to twice as fast. In
real world (like making a kernel, or making the world), overall system
performance seems to be improved about 33% to 50%, depending on how
much it hits the disk, of course.
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Michael L. VanLoon michaelv@HeadCandy.com
--< Free your mind and your machine -- NetBSD free un*x >--
NetBSD working ports: 386+PC, Mac 68k, Amiga, Atari 68k, HP300, Sun3,
Sun4/4c/4m, DEC MIPS, DEC Alpha, PC532, VAX, MVME68k, arm32...
NetBSD ports in progress: PICA, others...
Roll your own Internet access -- Seattle People's Internet cooperative.
If you're in the Seattle area, ask me how.
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