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Technology Stocks : CYRIX / NSM -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sleeperz who wrote (22254)	12/26/1997 5:38:00 PM
From: Jim McMannis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 33344

CR, The history of the FPU is quite intestesting. i8086's, i286's, 386's and i486SX's (disabled) didn't have one. Cyrix, Weitek etc. made it's name making add on math co-processors...i.e. fasmath. Only people running CAD and a few other apps really benefited. When Intel started putting the math co-processor on the 486DX...that was the end of Weitek....still not many really cared about the FPU. Then came QUAKE and some other games...which was written to take advantage of the Pentiums dual ported FPU. Now all of a sudden...Intel...MAKES a big deal out of their FPU. Intel should get on their hands and knees and thank QUAKE for this advertising ploy. Still the single ported FPU's of the 6x86MX and K6 coupled with a voodoo card should get sufficient frames/sec. Anything more than about 25 frames/sec is indistinguishable to the human eye. If you want to see some frame/sec tests go to www.sysdoc.pair.com and take a look at some test results. As far as the MediaGXm...it's supposed to have the same FPU and MMX as the 6x86...BUT it's FPU should be faster because the clockspeed of the MediaGXm is faster than the 6x86 vis a vis PR ratings. The 6x86MX-233 runs at 187.5Mhz where the GXm that compaq now sells is at 220Mhz. Mind you this is not the Presario 2200 180Mhx GXi but the 2240 due after the first of the year. I don't know how many frames/sec the new GXm will give with it's built in video. You might be able to disable it and add a voodoo card as the Presario 2240 has a couple of slots but I don't know for sure. Jim