From owner-freebsd-questions  Sat May  3 02:02:39 1997
Return-Path: <owner-questions>
Received: (from root@localhost)
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id CAA19756
          for questions-outgoing; Sat, 3 May 1997 02:02:39 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from pulp.nildram.co.uk (root@pulp.nildram.co.uk [195.112.4.8])
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id CAA19734
          for <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>; Sat, 3 May 1997 02:02:22 -0700 (PDT)
Received: (from uucp@localhost) by pulp.nildram.co.uk (8.7.5/8.7.3) with UUCP id JAA28351; Sat, 3 May 1997 09:35:10 GMT
Received: from i.vaudrey ([10.0.0.5])
	by mail.nemko.ltd.uk (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA10438;
	Sat, 3 May 1997 09:36:06 +0100 (BST)
Message-Id: <199705030836.JAA10438@mail.nemko.ltd.uk>
From: "Ian Vaudrey" <ivaudrey@test.nemko.ltd.uk>
To: "Jeffrey J. Mountin" <sysop@mixcom.com>
Cc: <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>, <mjanosi@numacorp.com>
Subject: Re: What to buy?
Date: Sat, 3 May 1997 09:32:55 +0100
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Priority: 3
X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet Mail 4.70.1161
Sender: owner-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
X-Loop: FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk

> From: Jeffrey J. Mountin <sysop@mixcom.com>
> To: Ian Vaudrey <ivaudrey@test.nemko.ltd.uk>
> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG; mjanosi@numacorp.com
> Subject: Re: What to buy?
> Date: 03 May 1997 05:36
> 
> At 12:38 PM 5/2/97 +0100, Ian Vaudrey wrote:
> >>     Cyrix 6x6 +200 motherboard
> >
> >The Cyrix processors are reputedly very quick, with the exception of a
> >lousy floating point unit. What would worry me is the power
> >requirements, at around twice that of the nearest equivalent Intel
> >part. This means more stress on the power supply and motherboard, and
> >for that matter the higher ambient temperature in your box might not
> >exactly be welcome news to your other components.
> 
> Not just floating point, which they really lag behind Intel on, but
normal
> numeric processing, they are somewhat slower.  One reason why I won't
touch
> them.
> 
> >AFAIK, motherboards supporting the 75MHz clock required by the
> >Cx686-200 are still pretty thin on the ground. At least one MB that
> >does support this seems to have reliability problems of it's own -
> >check out the Supermicro newsgroup if you have news access.
> 
> Hmmm... does this mean they can be set to 2.5 bus speed now?

No, the -200 suffix is just a 'performance indicator', it really clocks at
150MHz (2x 75MHz).

> 
> --snip--
> >>     16x CD-ROM IDE (Mitsumi?)
> >
> >Again, there have been several reports on this list of problems with
> >IDE CDROMs. I'd go for SCSI. You'd probably get much the same
> >throughput from a decent 8x SCSI drive as from a 16x IDE unit in any
> >case.
> 
> A 16X Toshiba SCSI can be had for just under $200, but I don't see why
one
> would need such speed.  "Wow!  You can install fast!"  and playing CDROM
> games, but that's 95.
> 

Absolutely no disagreement here!

<snip>

> 
> -------------------------------------------
> Jeff Mountin - System/Network Administrator
> jeff@mixcom.net
> 
> MIX Communications
> Serving the Internet since 1990

- Ian