"Hmmm. Interesting about the PIII 450's. I had no idea they were that cheap."
Most likely the sweet spot in CPU's at the moment. Especially after the release of the 550 PIII.
"OTOH I've been leery
of the PII's and PIII's because of the warmer LII cache. Is that really an issue? Do
those dual boxes stay cool?"
Warmer L2 cache? Haven't really heard of it being an issue unless you're overclocking. Key with dual-processors is stability of the motherboard. Although you might be able to get away with a cheap board for a single box, it's not recommended for a dual-processor unit. I recently set up a dual-Xeon for a client that ran Terminal Server. Picked up a really sweet rack-mount case with it with some good fans. Those Xeon's run VERY hot.
For standard Pentium II/III's, I would ensure good case ventilation with a few fans (all blowing in [and filtered]). Apart from that, they're fine.
"How hot do the Cheetah's get?"
The 10,000 RPM ones get up there if there being used alot. I sure as hell wouldn't stack them together, and a fan or two blowing across is a good idea. All goes down to how well your case is vented.
RAM recommendations are a two-parter. 1) Price of RAM. Although it's sure to drop (always does), you can never have enough. For NT, with serious apps, there's no reason not to go 256. ECC is a waste of time. For a Windows 98 box, don't go below 128. If you have 64...go out and pick up another 64Mg piece...you'll be pleasantly surprised.
"Is overclocking dangerous if you keep the peripherals clocked right? eg. using only
the 100FSB with the appropriate dividers to keep the bus speeds right on spec?"
Good point. Many people that go up to 133Mhz or 124 forget about the PCI bus speed. Don't mess with it, or you'll be able to smell that nice new card you just bought smoking. Apart from frying the CPU, the biggest thing is the motherboard that gets fried. The parts on the board are simply not made for overclocking, regardless of what the manufacturer says. You might only be changing the bus speed, or maybe the multiplier, and even if you change the voltage for the CPU, the heat, and voltage going through those parts can fry stuff.
I used to overclock routinely. And although it was fun for a bit, seeing so many toasted CPU's, boards, cards, etc (whether they were mine or clients) changed my mind. I've spoken to the engineers at Asus, and AOpen, and even some Intel guys...it's just not worth it. Especially when you take into account the cost of the components today.
<rant over>
Cheers,
Rich |
