Subject: Re: recommendation for MP box ?
To: None <=?iso-8859-1?Q?Jarom=EDr?= =?iso-8859-1?Q?_Dole=E8ek?=>
From: Laine Stump <lainestump@rcn.com>
List: port-i386
Date: 06/30/2000 14:51:51
At 07:33 PM 6/30/00 +0200, Jarom=EDr Dole=E8ek wrote:
>Hi,
>I'm considering buying a MP-capable box, though only dual-processor. Two
>motherboards I'm considering so far are
>	Gigabyte 6BXD 440BX (Dual2xS1)
>	Abit BP6 i440BX  (2xPPGA, ATA66)

I have a BP6 and it does fine, even when I run my 366Mhz CPUs at 450Mhz
(the only problem there is that some CD drives, as well as NetGear
ethernets, refuse to work properly when the bus is overclocked. 3Com
ethernets, and harddrives on the *standard* IDE busses work just fine).

>Since this is designed to be just dual processor box, I'd probably
>go with Celerons, the price different is very tempting :)

Last I heard, the BP6 supported *only* Celerons, no PIII-PPGA support
(although you might be able to get some sort of adapter to go between the
motherboard and the CPUs). see http://www.abit.com.tw

I couldn't figure out from there whether or not it supports the newer FCPGA
Celerons...

>The
>difference between them is the processor cache size only, right ?

I think older Celerons lack some of the 3D instructions or something, but
that's probably nothing that you'd use under NetBSD anyway.

>Does the cache size make the actual processor speed so different ?

That depends on what you're doing. For example, if you're using most of the
CPU time to do 3DES encryption (which works for a relatively long time on a
small chunk of data), the Celeron can actually be slightly *faster* than a
comparably clocked Slot1 PII or PIII, since the latter's (larger) cache
only runs at half CPU speed. Of course, the FCPGA PIII's have cache that
runs at full CPU speed anyway. At the other end of the spectrum you can
have multiple processes with extremely large working sets that would almost
surely favor the Pentium.

>For example, I can get 566 or 533 MHz Celeron for like $US 110 and
>Pentium II 350 SECC2 is for like $US 170, so Celeron seems like better
choice.

The PII 350 is a poor comparison, since it has been out of production for
some time. Compare to the PIII 500 or 550, and it is much more reasonable.
(You can do quick comparisons of market prices on
http://www.pricewatch.com, although unfortunately most of the places listed
there probably won't be able to ship to you.)