🚀 go-pugleaf

kkrieser@ionet.net wrote:
: From what I have read, you should avoid motherboards that have both VLB 
: and PCI.  Tests have shown them to be slower than either VLB motherboards
: or PCI motherboards.  Also, at work we bought a bunch of computers,
: and they came with these combination motherboards.  We had several problems
: and the manufacturer ended up replacing ALL the motherboards with PCI/ISA 
: versions.

Although frequently true, this is an overgeneralization.  The problem, as 
I understand it, lies in the dual-bus implementation of some early 
dual-bus boards, which set it up so that the VL bus "talked" directly to 
the CPU, as VLB is supposed to do, but the PCI bus was set up as a 
"bridge" off of the VL bus, which slowed down PCI bus performance 
something awful.  The design used on Asus' dual-bus boards, OTOH, sets up 
the PCI bus to "talk" to the CPU the way it's supposed to, and then sets 
up the VLB as a bridge from the PCI bus.  Apparently this results in less 
of a hit on the VLB than the first design does for the PCI bus, and the 
overall performance is much better.

OTOH, there's been some discussion lately in the Asus newsgroups about 
poor PCI bus performance with the PVI-SP3 when the VL bus slot is in use, 
so maybe this particular Asus board doesn't do it right.  :-(  In that 
case, the Asus PVI-AP4 would still be the only choice of which I know in 
the dual-bus (VLB/PCI) category.

--
					--Rod Smith
					  RSMITH@PSYCH.COLORADO.EDU