On 18-Feb-96 VaX#n8 wrote:
~>~>I'm going to upgrade to a mboard with PCI, and I'm wondering if I should
~>get a 586 (ahem, pentium) mboard since I've heard they have wider memory
~>access buses.  Is this true, and does it make a significant performance
~>impact?
~>I'm considering the ASUS SP3G for a 486 board and either ASUS or Tyan
~>(maybe Micronics) for a pentium board.  Tyan has the "nifty" IR transceiver
~>which has a high toy factor (others probably do too).
~>I'm not real convinced the CPU speed matters that much but I do want
~>high bandwidth to memory.

Yes, it makes and incredibly difference, in my experience.  I bought a 
Cyrix 5x86, a product that is supposed to be closer to a 586 class machine
than a 486.  The major difference is that the data bus on the 5x86 (cause 
it goes on 486 class motherboards) is limited to 32 bits [instead of the 
Pentium clas 64]  

According Cyrix, it is supposed to run comparably wth a P90.  This is not
the results I have seen, running NetBSD at least.  According to HINT,
a system benchmark that is larger based on memory transfer rates,
my computer is slower than a P66.  It feels like a P66.

I recommend not buying a 486 class mboard, or a half-breed chip like mine.
If AMD comes out with a competitively priced Pentium clone, there may be 
competition, but for now I would recommend a ``genuine Intel'' product.
[IMHO, the Cyrix 6x86 is not priced competitively]

Nate

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nathan Sheeley                
CPR E 3                        
nsheeley@doa.flame.org          515-233-6055
02/18/96  11:03:02