parke@star.enet.dec.com (Bill Parke) (01/03/91)
I am considering building a "blistering" (maxi-toy }8-)} ) system
in a few months (say after June 1991) and have a few questions, since
my current experience with PCish systems is buying fully built systems
and adding a few cards here and there.
The system I would like to build is a 486/something (25/33?)
and I realize that the current line of boards are all somewhat
new and wish to avoid being part of the shakeout (as well as
to wait for the price to drop }8-)} ). Presumably I would want
such things as a fairly large external cache etc.
It should be DOS and U**X capable.
Where I grossly lack experience is in picking the mother board and
seeing into the future.
There are a lot of "buznames" such as Micronics, AMI, MYLEX,
DTK etc who build mother boards (which I have seen associated
with available 486 boards).
Who's motherboard is the best (any opinions welcome) and why ?
I noticed from Computer shopper that a 486/25 system
with comparable cache (64K) seems to exhibit multiple
landmark ratings and assume the buss/motherboard has
something to do with this.
Please feel free to discuss vendors other than the above.
Which support chips are best (INTEL, C&T, ...) and how do
they differ ? (I realize that a particular mother board
maker would probably stick with a particular set of chips).
What about BIOS (or is that fixed by the motherboard) ? Should BIOS
selection influence the selection of the motherboard ? Is any one better
or more functional than another ? Why ?
Which buss to pick, ISA or EISA (I assume I would not want
to homebrew a Microchannel }8-)} ) ?
My initial leanings tend to be towards EISA with the
486 machines as that would seem to provide the widest
expansion path for the future. Is this true ??
Along these lines, does anyone know what is available or might
be coming in the way of 32 bit controllers for graphics and
disk drives ?
Please reply here and/or by direct mail. I am willing to
mail or post a summary of this discussion after it has had
time to run it's course.
--
Bill Parke parke%star.enet.dec@decwrl.dec.com
VMS Development decwrl!star.enet.dec.com!parke
Digital Equipment Corp parke@star.enet.dec.com
110 Spit Brook Road ZK01-1/F22, Nashua NH 03063
The views expressed are my own.