🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Dec15.141953.21972@dvorak.amd.com>, tdbear@dvorak.amd.com (Thomas D. Barrett) writes:
|> In article <8f9__KS00WB5Qu_ogq@andrew.cmu.edu> fj05+@andrew.cmu.edu (Faisal Nameer Jawdat) writes:
|> >
|> >Well for one thing, the dx50 and the dx2/66 are different chips
|> >needing different motherboards, so it's quite possible that to switch
|> 
|> These two devices may or may not be the same... the OverDrive(tm) version
|> is of slightly different pinout and is plugged into the OverDrive(tm)
|> compatible socket.  There is also an OEM version which has identical 
|> pinout to the DX, but may be hard to find on the open market.
|> 
|> As for other issues... the DX2/66 uses a 33MHz clock and the DX50 uses
|> a 50MHz clock.  These frequencies are so far apart that it is unwise to 
|> replace crystals since the chipset and clock filtering components (for 
|> FCC/VDE) may not be able to take the change well.
|> 
|> 
|> -- 
|> | Tom Barrett (TDBear), Sr. Engineer | tom.barrett@amd.com
|> | AMD PCD / Austin, TX  78741        | v:512-462-6856 / f:512-462-5155
|> | "No is Yes, and We are All FREE!"  | CO made a #2 no-no... PU!
|> | My views may not be shared by the organization of origin

I watched this thread for a while, but am surprised no one points out an
important reason of why you don't want to replace a DX50 with the DX2/66.
The question one should ask is what performance do I gain? For all I have read
and heard, the two chips delivers roughly the same *average* performance in
most real applications. After you sum up the balance of on-chip and off-chip
activities, it is simply about the same. Unless you are doing some
computationally intensive task that are small enough to reside entirely in the
on-chip cache, it is simply not worth it to swap.

One reason I think that might favor the DX2/66 is it can be used with the
VL-bus standard while 50MHz VL-bus does not seem viable (at least the
recommedation is to have only 1(2?) on board device, instead of up to 3 slots.) 
However this cannot be a justification in the original context, as it is
defined by the motherboard, rather than by the CPU chip.

-- John