raster@pawl.rpi.edu (Jerry D Bain) (06/09/90)
Please forgive me if the subject of the relative merits of various
motherboards has been over-asked. I have been doing research into the
various 386/33 motherboards on the market, and have found very little
credible and reliable information:
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I friend and I are interested in purchasing a couple of 386/33 motherboards to
upgrade our computers with (with 64k cache and 4meg memory). Unfortunately
though, we know very little about the relative reliability of the various
motherboards on the market.
From limited personal experience, I have found that the AMI 386/33 Mark II
motherboard is a fairly good board. I would be very interested in finding
out if anyone out there has a suggestion and/or comments on the various
motherboards available. Some of the many boards that I know of include: AMI,
DTK, AMX, Magitronix, Micronics, Precision Technologies, and more...
Factors we would be considering would be:
o Reliability (do they tend to die too often?) - For instance, I have
heard horror stories about the early DTK motherboards
o Compatibility (any documented or known hardware or ROM/software
compatibility issues?) - The current DTK ROMS have real problems
with certain SCSI/VGA combinations.
o Expandability (can cache and memory be expanded beyond 64k and
8192k?) - some motherboards only provide for 64k cache maximum,
and some, like the AMI only provide for a split 4meg DIPS and 4meg
SIMMS memory split.
o Price (minor consideration, but important) - The well known boards
like the AMI Mark II are $300+ more expensive
Please send email with any suggestions/comments to this account. If there is
enough interest, I will post summaries.
--Jerry Bain, raster@pawl.rpi.edu