I have a genuine Intel P200 MMX, with 32mb RAM It runs v. well in Linux but in Windows it's disappointing unless you have a really nice graphics card (like at least 8 meg) but anyway, memory and hard drive speed is what slows down my computer, so I'd recommend 64meg and an ultra-fast-wide-scsi hard drive as swap memory is always needed. Those two things in my opinion are essential if you want to exploit the potential of the cpu because I don't think my machine would run any faster even with a PII because swap space on hard drive is used as memory and slows the whole thing down, so even a P200 isn't working to 100% usage most of the time.
Anyway, try your best to get a PII because you won't be able to upgrade much at all, and socket 7 motherboards will become obsolete. This is my problem. The MMX instruction set is what speeds up an MMX CPU, and Linux doesn't use this, because MMX is really aimed at Win95 people for games and graphics (Corel 8 is MMX enhanced) anyway, MMX claims to be 20% faster for any _non_ MMX application anyway (ie a P166 MMX is 20% faster than a normal P166 in linux or unix or anything.) The AMD K6 is quite good and I think it's much cheaper but its performance varies. With some benchmarks and applications it runs faster than intel but others it doesn't. I wouldn't but a K6 purely because of higher performance because I'm not convinced. >>In other words, the difference between a P200 and a P200MMX is nada.<< no no no! It's 20% faster! Good luck, try to find a cheap P2 so you'll be able to upgrade, Tristan |******************************************************** | | This message was sent using | | Micro$oft Express. - Don't blame me, mother | | insists. | | | | "You're Not Our Brightest Year" - Mr Boon, | | Headteacher of St Bede's, Cambridge | | | | "Tristan you're soo annoying!! | | I'm sorry, you're not really, you're very sweet" | | -Mrs Myers, Maths Teacher | ********************************************************* -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
