On 18 Feb 98 at 11:40, Bob Wright wrote:

> Cyrix and AMD have implemented new chips that are intended to stay
> in the Pentium or Socket 7 range, use an AGP port on the older
> style system Pentium boards and still move up to the 300mhz range.
> The only problem is that the socket7 does not offer the DIB or Dual
> Independent Bus.  This DIB connects the processor to the L2 cache
> and the system bus, speeding up the whole system, including the
> graphics.

  Although I've seen plenty of evidence that the PII's L2 cache,
inside the processor package and thus not limited to motherboard bus
speeds, improves performance (especially on certain kinds of tasks),
I have not seen benchmark results that point to any similar
significant boost attributable to DIB.  AMD seems to think that one
of their 1998 models, which will include L2 cache inside the
processor package, will be able to continue to compete with PII while
staying with Socket 7.
  I'm not saying that your argument above doesn't make a lot of sense
-- it does.  All I'm saying is that I have not yet seen any numbers
that show me that DIB, as delivered by the PII, is making a
perceptible difference in actual system performance -- and I can't
recommend it as basis for a purchase decision until then.

  For what it's worth, I do think a move into the PII world is a
reasonable thing for Lance to do.  But I think to really do it well
will take about twice his budget.

David G