From owner-freebsd-hardware Tue Aug 6 21:00:43 1996 Return-Path: owner-hardware Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id VAA02631 for hardware-outgoing; Tue, 6 Aug 1996 21:00:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from MindBender.HeadCandy.com (root@mindbender.headcandy.com [199.238.225.168]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id VAA02613 for ; Tue, 6 Aug 1996 21:00:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost.HeadCandy.com (michaelv@localhost.HeadCandy.com [127.0.0.1]) by MindBender.HeadCandy.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id VAA21062; Tue, 6 Aug 1996 21:00:30 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199608070400.VAA21062@MindBender.HeadCandy.com> X-Authentication-Warning: MindBender.HeadCandy.com: Host michaelv@localhost.HeadCandy.com [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol To: Kenneth Merry cc: hardware@freebsd.org Subject: Re: P6 Natoma chipset In-reply-to: Your message of Tue, 06 Aug 96 14:41:32 -0400. <199608061841.OAA14299@ulc199.residence.gatech.edu> Date: Tue, 06 Aug 1996 21:00:19 -0700 From: "Michael L. VanLoon -- HeadCandy.com" Sender: owner-hardware@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >> I'm going to be buying a 200MHz Pentium Pro and motherboard (probably >> a dual-CPU) in the next week or two. I know the Orion chipset has >> some nasty bugs (like the 4MB/s PCI bus speed). > That particular Orion bug only affected the pre-B0 steppings of the >chipset. From Rod Grimes: (7/17/96, freebsd-hardware) >===== >One more time.... >Chip sets belowing stepping B0 have a PCI bus mastering bug that prevents >data tranfer rates to reach much beyond 4.4MB/s on the PCI bus. There >is a fundemental flaw in the design of the chipset/CPU interface logic >as well, that will never be fixed which has a significant impact on >CPU/Memory bandwidth. >===== Read the last sentence again. Actually, what you quote says that there is a design deficiency which will never be fixed in the Orion chipset. The Orion chipset just makes me nervous... I'll go with the Natoma. > The SuperMicro P6DNF looks pretty spiffy, too, but I'd rather have >more PCI slots. (One of the ASUS boards has 5, and the other 6 usable PCI >slots.) Also, the ASUS boards have NCR SCSI bios, which would be nice to >have. I just ordered one. We'll see how spiffy it is in a week or so. :-) > Has anyone seen the Pentium Pro chips with the 512K L2 cache? The >only place I've seen them advertised is ALR. No... I have a feeling they would be obscenely expensive if you could find them. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------