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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msuinfo!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!psinntp!internet!sbi.sbi.com!std!bet From: bet@std.sbi.com (Bennett Todd) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Subject: Re: freebsd vs. netbsd vs. linux Date: 7 Sep 1994 00:20:17 GMT Organization: Salomon Brothers, Inc. Lines: 25 Message-ID: <34j101$67n@sbi.sbi.com> References: <33lef8$bov@constellation.ecn.uoknor.edu> <jmonroyCv9uCC.KIG@netcom.com> <hart.778237138@apanix.apana.org.au> NNTP-Posting-Host: std.sbi.com In article <hart.778237138@apanix.apana.org.au>, Leigh Hart <hart@apanix.apana.org.au> wrote: >Just a recommendation on your hardware selection, I would consider >going for a 486DX based motherboard, with 8mb of ram as a minimum. >This will give you "good bang for buck" - in other words, good >performance for your hardware dollars. > >Also, although X windows can run on monochrome screens, it is much >nicer on a VGA screen :-) I think there are two attractive price/performance points in PCs these days: the 386DX-40 (just because they're so _cheap_) and the 486DX-50 and 486DX2-66 (whichever is cheaper). The 386DX-40 is a reasonable choice; at $85 for a motherboard w/ cpu and 128K or more of cache, it's a good value. If you want to spend more for better performance, there are various ways to do it. Sometimes buying more RAM is the best investment --- for some jobs, a 386DX-40 with 32M RAM will be faster than a 486DX2-66 with 8M, and the costs are similar. Sometimes it's better to pour more money into the display subsystem; if snappy X response is your criterion, I think you'll get more bang out of a good fast S3-based SVGA controller than out of a 386DX-40 -> 486DX2-66 upgrade. And for some jobs (compiling is probably a good example) the CPU is the bottleneck. -Bennett bet@sbi.com