From owner-freebsd-smp Tue Jun 30 00:33:09 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id AAA22203 for freebsd-smp-outgoing; Tue, 30 Jun 1998 00:33:09 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-smp@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from time.cdrom.com (root@time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id AAA22156 for ; Tue, 30 Jun 1998 00:32:48 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from jkh@time.cdrom.com) Received: from time.cdrom.com (jkh@localhost.cdrom.com [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id AAA07164; Tue, 30 Jun 1998 00:32:14 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from jkh@time.cdrom.com) To: Leo Papandreou cc: freebsd-smp@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: PPro vs PII In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 29 Jun 1998 20:07:53 EDT." <19980629200753.14325@supersex.com> Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 00:32:13 -0700 Message-ID: <7160.899191933@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-smp@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org > Given that newer PIIs/mobos will soon be running their cache at full > speed, just like the Pro, I'd say the Pro is not worth looking at if > you can swallow the difference in price for a PII. Yes, but that's not going to help you now nor will you be able to preserve your investment in CPU technology if you go this route now, before the Xeon technology is released. I think that what people are trying to say right now is that a dual P6 system is REALLY CHEAP and a heck of a good way to get into the SMP waters for far less money than people used to spend on 286 machines. You can go out and get an Intel dual P6 Providence mobo with on-board SCSI WIDE and 100MBit ethernet support (AIC 7880 and Pro 100B respectively) for < $100 now (we've been getting them for $89) and the CPUs for $200-$300 each. If you can put together a full system including memory, CPUs and net/scsi ctlr/4GB disk for $1K right now in the PII camp then I'd be most interested to hear it. Since I think the answer is currently that "you can't", there's still considerable merit to the idea of buying 3 of these systems for $3K and deploying them far more favorably than you could a single system costing the same price. I also agree with the person who said that a P6/PII argument was senseless. It's really a price/performance issue and always has been for most people. - Jordan To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-smp" in the body of the message