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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!howland.erols.net!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!nntp.uio.no!news.apfel.de!nntp.zit.th-darmstadt.de!fu-berlin.de!informatik.tu-muenchen.de!lrz-muenchen.de!uni-erlangen.de!rznews.rrze.uni-erlangen.de!cip.e-technik.uni-erlangen.de!niemann From: niemann@cip.e-technik.uni-erlangen.de (Hartmut Niemann) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.hardware Subject: Re: Request for advice Date: 6 Dec 1996 08:15:58 GMT Organization: EE Students Computer Pool, University of Erlangen, Germany Lines: 88 Message-ID: <588knu$8kq@rznews.rrze.uni-erlangen.de> References: <va420d4suai.fsf@jay.dpmms.cam.ac.uk> <32A774B0.5E02@rpi.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: niemann@cipy.e-technik.uni-erlangen.de Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:32122 comp.os.linux.hardware:58569 Andrew Dickinson <dickia@rpi.edu> writes: >Gareth McCaughan wrote: >> >> - Memory. My guess is that I could survive uncomfortably >> with 16Mb and would be reasonably comfortable with 32. >> With prices where they are at the moment, this doesn't >> seem a sensible corner to cut. Right? >> >Get 32 MB... Linux sucks up lots of memory. I used to run in with 8Mb, actually, but it was >really slow. I upgraded to 16 and it still wasn't particullarly fast. I'd cut corners in >other places before skimping on the memory. Yes. 16 seems a reasonable miniumum, 32 is comfortable and fast. >> - Memory again. If I don't get parity memory, am I really >> seriously going to regret it? How common are memory errors >> these days? >> >Rare, I think. If there were lives at stake, I would get parity. For general use, I don't >think it matters -- I think the failure rate of your system due to alpha particles hitting >DRAM is far lower than the failure rate of other things in your system... As no OS yet can deal with parity errors ... not needed (AFAIK). >> - CPU. Any compelling reason to choose Intel over Cyrix/IBM? >> I'm contemplating the 6x86 P166+, which seems to be very >> well placed in price/performance. I don't expect to be >> spending all my time doing simulations or solving differential >> equations, or anything else that would require a lot of FP oomph. The Cyrix is reported to be choosy about main boards. Watch out. >> >> - Motherboard. How much difference does HX make over VX? >> What about differences between manufacturers? Presumably >> the main difference there is in reliability rather than >> speed? Any manufacturers I should be avoiding? >> VX is a joke (according to c't, a (here well known) German computer magazine). Get HX and pay the extra $10. It is faster with standard simms (and EDO), and you won't buy sdrams, wiull you? Get 256 KByte pipelined burst cache. >> - Video card. What's the cheapest thing that will do, say, >> 1280x1024 at 8bpp and 1152x900 at 16bpp? What if I want >> to be able to go higher than that? (1600x1200 at 8bpp?) >> I've had prices quoted at me for systems including a >> "Diamond Stealth 2Mb 64 DRAM" (but, aargh, which chipset?) >> and an "S3 ViRGE 3D VGA card", which sounds a bit vague. >> How are these likely to perform? Should I just forget it >> and get a Millenium? >> >I've been researching this myself recently. The verdict: Matrox (Millenium) isn't supported >(yet) under Linux -- people are working on it, but who knows how long it will take? >The latest Xfree86 (3.2) has S3 Virge support. I've heard from a few people that it works >fine. The S3 Virge chips are definitely not the fastest -- there are better 3D chips out >there -- but they're adequate. You'll need 4MB on your video card for 1280x1024, 8bpp (I >think -- check out the manufacturer's home pages) Andrew, if you read news as well as you used your netscape ... The Millenium IS supprted in XFree 3.2 (use the SVGA server). With a 17" monitor the highest useful resolution is 1280x1024, but 1152x768 will be fine as well. So check whether a card can do <your resolution> at <needed colours> at < refreshrate >= 75 Hz > The S3 cards seem well supported; if 3D-graphics is no issue for you, get a 'standard 2MB S3 card', e.g. with Trio64 chipset. It will probably do. The Millenium is fast, but it is not cheap. If 256 colours will do it, even a Trio32 card will be fine! >> -- >> Gareth McCaughan Dept. of Pure Mathematics & Mathematical Statistics, >> gjm11@dpmms.cam.ac.uk Cambridge University, England. >-- >Andrew Dickinson >(dickia@rpi.edu) Hartmut Niemann niemann@cip.e-technik.uni-erlangen.de