>My recommendations:
>	Forget P5. Forget MMX. Go P6.  NetBSD is exclusively 32-bit
[...]

In general, I would agree with this.  My Pentium Pro (clocked to
233MHz) absolutely smokes anything else I've used, PC-based.

As you mention later, the AMD K6 is also a real screamer.  I've heard
good things about the new Cyrix M2, as well, but haven't seen
benchmarks.  The thing some people in the FreeBSD groups are finding
out with the K6 is that you must have a motherboard with a very well
made voltage regulator, or you can get some sporadic behavior.  The K6
draws some serious amperage, and some cheaper motherboards simply
can't keep it fed.  If you buy a K6, make sure your motherboard is
approved for it, and if not, consider getting a board that is.

>	Buying a 150 MHz P6 is a very smart choice. I got one at Fry's
[...]

Just make sure that if you go with a /30 speed (as opposed to a /33
speed), that you can overclock it to a /33 speed.  Running a 150 or
180MHz chip at those speeds only gives you a 30MHz PCI bus, and a
60MHz memory bus.  You lose 10% across the entire machine, not just in
the CPU core.

>	I'm not sure why you think the bus speed will be better with
>	the P5.  The PCI bus speed just depends on whether the integer
>	divisor from the CPU speed can hit 33 MHz, or whether you have
[...]

Actually, the FreeBSD folks have done a lot of tweaking on the P5
bcopy code, and have been able to make it vastly out-perform the P6 on
this single benchmark.  It might have more to do with the Natoma
vs. the Triton-II chipset.  I don't know the details.  However,
highly optimized straight memory-to-memory copies can be made faster
on a P5 than on a Pentium Pro.  This is about the only thing a P5 can
do faster, however.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Michael L. VanLoon                           michaelv@MindBender.serv.net
        --<  Free your mind and your machine -- NetBSD free un*x  >--
    NetBSD working ports: 386+PC, Mac 68k, Amiga, Atari 68k, HP300, Sun3,
        Sun4/4c/4m, DEC MIPS, DEC Alpha, PC532, VAX, MVME68k, arm32...
    NetBSD ports in progress: PICA, others...
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