On 12 Feb 98 at 18:35, Kelly Rogers wrote:

> I'm am a novice builder and plan on building a Pentium II computer I in the
> selection process now of mboards I am considering an Asus Atx mboard. There
> are a couple of things I am confused about,

> First what is the difference between dual Pentium and single?

  If you have multiple applications open, or multiple threads within
an application (don't worry, you probably don't need to know about
this), a suitable OS can arrange for two or more processors to each
be working at once.  The set of suitable OSes includes Windows NT and
many *nix flavours; it does not include Windows 95 or any 16-bit PC
OSes.

  Note A:  You can run a dual-CPU board with only one CPU installed.
But the two processors need to be pretty closely matched; you cannot
simply expect to add a second processor in six months; plan to sell
your single CPU at that point and buy a matched pair.

  Note B:  There are two hardware standards for multi-CPU operation
("SMP" is the technical term).  One of them is proprietary to Intel;
the other, implemented on many (most?) AMD and Cyrix CPUs, is not
supported on any motherboards.  [Your choice of Slot 1 (PII) already
commits you to Intel, but other readers may be interested in dual
Socket 7 configurations.]

> Second I know older systems have cache on board the mboard I am
> considering says 512 cache on Pentium II chip?

  The Pentium Pro and Pentium II include L2 cache inside the
processor package.  I believe all released (to date) models of the
PII have 512KB, although a 1MB version is planned, and maybe a 2MB
version.

> Third the mboard says no fan do Pentium II processors require fans?

  Pentium II processors require at least a heatsink, and preferably a
fan.  Intel's "boxed" version comes with a pretty good one already
attached.

David G


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