Re: PentiumII's.
Rogier Wolff (R.E.Wolff@BitWizard.nl)
Thu, 31 Jul 1997 08:42:53 +0200 (MET DST)
Kurt Huwig wrote:
>
> On Tue, 29 Jul 1997, System Email wrote:
> > My company needs a couple new servers to handle a large volume of live
> > video compression/encryption. I am not even sure if Linux supports the new
> > PentiumII MMX chips at all let alone SMP. To start I think 1 PII 300mhz
> > chip will do, but I would like to buy a board capable of handling at least
> > two cpu's. Does linux support PentiumII's (does it work?) Secondly does
> > SMP Linux work wiht a Pentium II? and if so what would be the best board
> > to get for this.
>
> (All of the writing below is my personal opinion and unter the licence
> 'correct me if I'm wrong', because I'm not too deep in hardware)
>
> As you said you are using Linux, I guess you have sources for the
> software.
>
> Have you ever thought of getting an Alpha? Based on a benchmark in a
> German computer magazine (c't), the Alpha-533MHz is about 4 times faster
> in floating point as a PPro with 233MHz. If you want integer arithmetics,
> the K6 beats the PPro.
>
> The only thing that is really faster with MMX is the Intel Media Benchmark
> and a small speedup due to the larger L1 cache. As I think, the P-II is
> just the logical consequence of the poor rate of 'good' PPro chips in the
> production due to the large integrated cache which made the die unusable
> if a certain amount of the cells failed.
>
> Last and least, the P-II just caches 64MB of RAM.
No. It caches "only" 512Mb of RAM.
You can be guaranteed that Linus works with Pentium-II, and with SMP
at the same time, as Linus is using a dual Pentium-II. He likes
it... :-)
Roger.