At 12:19 PM 2/18/98 -0800, David wrote:
>
>  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


There is one other argument to be made for upgrading to the
PentiumII boards and it rests on the future of chip upgrades.

If you are intending to make the most of your upgrade dollars
for future expansion, it might also be wise to consider the newer
chips online for the PentiumII, (Slot One), connector.  Intel has
been talking about the 400mhz to 500mhz chips, (I have even
seen predictions of much faster chips relatively soon), for this
Slot One connector.  I would be hard pressed to believe a
Socket7, (old style pentium), motherboard will ever be able
to support or utilize chips in excess of 300mhz.

This reminds me greatly of when Intel was moving to P60 / P66
on PCI motherboards and Cyrix/AMD were pushing ahead with
the 4x 486 chips on VLB boards, even eventually forcing the market
to PCI on 486 boards.  Eventually, Cyrix & AMD had taxed the
486 motherboards and had to move onto Pentium clone chips...
They were getting low end Pentium speed out of those 486
boards...  but, you just had no where else to go for upgrades
after the 486DX4-133 chip.

Bob