From owner-freebsd-hackers  Thu Nov 21 13:39:20 1996
Return-Path: owner-hackers
Received: (from root@localhost)
          by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id NAA19093
          for hackers-outgoing; Thu, 21 Nov 1996 13:39:20 -0800 (PST)
Received: from george.lbl.gov (george-2.lbl.gov [131.243.2.12])
          by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id NAA19088
          for <hackers@freebsd.org>; Thu, 21 Nov 1996 13:39:14 -0800 (PST)
Received: (jin@localhost) by george.lbl.gov (8.6.10/8.6.5) id NAA12456; Thu, 21 Nov 1996 13:39:11 -0800
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 13:39:11 -0800
From: "Jin Guojun[ITG]" <jin@george.lbl.gov>
Message-Id: <199611212139.NAA12456@george.lbl.gov>
To: swallace@ece.uci.edu
Subject: Re: Pentium Pro status
Cc: hackers@freebsd.org
Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org
X-Loop: FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk

} > I wanted some input regarding Pentium Pro machines.
} > Has anyone had any problems with the hardware and/or using it with
} > FreeBSD?
} > 
} > Are there any problems with the PP chipset(is the latest Orion II or something
} ?)
} > I remember hearing about PCI problems with the chipset.  Someone
} > told me they still have problems in orion II.  Is this true?
} > 
} > What motherboards for Pentium Pro are good and reliable?
} > 
} > What about multiprocessor support?  Does anyone have FreeBSD hacks to
} > support multiple processors?  How well is it working?
} > 
} > Thank you,
} > 
} > Steven Wallace
} 
} I'm using a PPro-200 with the 440FX chipset, I don't remember its 
} nickname.  I've had no problems with it at all. 

440FX is the most popular PCI chipset for PP motherboard. I do not know its
nickname either.  I ordered two MBs with this chipset: one is Tyan S1662 and
another is ASUS P6NP5 (dual CPU is P65UP5).  FreeBSD 2.2-Alpha crashes on
Tyan S1662 quite often on NFS Tx. The ASUS has not come in yet.
The trade off is CPU power with I/O power.
Pentinum Pro gives 50% CPU power than Pentinum, but 440FX has 25% less memory
bandwith than Triton-II. Also, I experienced that PP has slow network I/O than
Pentinum.
Some more performance comparsion willbe found on:

ftp://george.lbl.gov/pub/ccs/performance.ps (p6-7 for P<-->PP).
It will be updated whenever the new board/machines come in.

-Jin