> >	Pentium PT5 90, PCI (512K cache, 3 PCI,2 VESA 3(5) ISA)
> 
> I heard that both the PCI and VLB busses are slower on motherboards that
> use both (as opposed to PCI/ISA or VLB/ISA) due to integration. It seems
> a safe consensus to stay away from PCI/VLB mixes unless you want to use
> some VLB cards off an older system.

	When I was looking at moving to a PCI based PC, I heard the same thing.
PCI/VLB mixes are something to avoid.  I was looking at Linux 
configurations at the time, and it turned out that no PCI/VLB 
motherboards were supported at the time because of the quirks of the 
configuration.  NetBSD may have the same difficulties.

> >	Quantum 540Mb SCSI HDD
> 
> Is this a SCSI 2 drive or just SCSI? The SCSI drive would work on the
> SCSI 2 controller, but it wouldn't take advantage of the controller's
> speed. Also be aware of the difference between SCSI 2 and Fast SCSI 2...

	If you are looking at the LPS - you should know that it is much 
slower than the Empire series SCSI-2.  When I looked at Hard Drives (I 
only looked at Quantums :^), I saw the LPS 540 for $300, but wanted 
something faster, so I looked at the Empire 540 for $450, then saw that 
the Empire 1080 was $600, so I went with the 1080  - twice the hard 
drive, it's twice as fast, and supports SCSI-2 FAST.  It's less than $600 
now, too.

> >	2Mb Diamond Stealth PCI DRAM Graphics Card
> 
> I'd personally try for the 2M VRAM version (that's upgradable to 4M).
> I think that adds around $100...

	To take advantage of cards that support 24 bit modes at high 
resolutions, you really need 4M VRAM, and a good 15" monitor.

> >	VESA Dual 16550 UART I/O Card (2S. 1P etc)

	Some of the new motherboards come with this.  Might want to check 
that out - but you don't want the VL-bus anyway, so grab a PCI or even ISA 
card for that.  The I/O card isn't going to have enough going on to 
really need to be on the PCI bus.

> >But what about Soundblaster/SCSI Card ??  Has anyone heard of, had any 
> >experience with these?

> Do you really need another SCSI 2 card? Sounds like you don't need the
> CD's either... Why not just by the plain-Jane 16 bit soundblaster, and
> pick your own CDrom drive? It seems the money you save would be enough
> to go from DRAM to VRAM on the video card.

	Precisely.  SCSI isn't bleedin' IDE. SCSI-2 (esp. SCSI-2 FAST) 
supports more bandwidth on the bus, and up to 7 devices (one is the 
controller).  There's really little need to have two SCSI busses (unless 
you have 2 CPU's and are a File server), and it'll save you money and hassle 
to get a regular SCSI CD-ROM and regular SB-16.

> Disclaimer: I am not a PC hardware or NetBSD guru.

	Me neither.  But I did play a PC guy on TV :^)
	Actually, I did do alot of thinking about it and looking around 
before realising that my Amiga was still adequate, would be for another year 
or so, and that it's value was falling slower than that of PC's.

-- 
//  Stephen Champion                   Amiga 3000/25    NetBSD 1.0
//  schampion@hampshire.edu            Binary Arithmetic Student
//  steve@eth217.hampshire.edu         Only the ignorant know everything.
#include "/usr/local/doc/disclaimer"