🚀 go-pugleaf

Alan Smith (cs547091@lux.latrobe.edu.au) wrote:

> I am upgrading my motherboard and am concidering getting an Octek DCA2
> motherboard which uses 15nS DymamiCache.  Does anyone know much about
> these?  

A little.

The DCA2 uses what is called EDRAM (not EDORAM). EDRAM is basically a SIMM
module where each memory chip includes a small amount of cache on the
actual chip itself. So by using these special SIMM's the manufacturer
saves the cost of cache controllers and cache chips. The SIMM's cost
more than standard SIMM's and I don't think you can use standard ones
even if you are willing to sacrifice speed.

I have run Norton SI V7 on 3 486DX2-66 machine, 1 a DCA2 board, the other
an SiS based VLB board and the third an Intel Saturn based PCI board.
Guess what, exactly the same speed. So the DCA2 isn't making performance
worse for this test, it just didn't make it better. I don't know how it
would perform on different tests and I believe that Norton SI is a very
basic test. Some motherboards with more than 16 Meg of RAM have problems
caching anything above 16 Meg. I doubt this problem would happen with
the DCA2 motherboard.
-- 
--      .     +------------------------------------------------------------+
    ,--_|\    | John Saunders  - (Work) johns@rd.scitec.com.au             |
   /  Oz  \   |                - (Home) john@pacer.apana.org.au            |
   \_,--\_/   | SCITEC LIMITED - Phone +61 2 428 9541 - Fax +61 2 428 9933 |
         v    +------------------------------------------------------------+