>>>>> "RW" == Robin Whittle  writes:

 RW> Those with $ should definitely check out Alpha motherboards, which 
 RW> can run Linux.  I suspect it is early days, but presumably they work 
 RW> and can run GCC.

Digital has even showed an 766 MHz Alpha board running Linux and had
Quake running as demo program in 1280x1024 resoltion... if someone has
a spare one of these I can give you my snail-mail address and you can
send me it :)

 RW> HP 9000 Model K460EG 180 MHz PA-RISC 8000        20.2
                                               
 RW> AlphaStation 500/500  500 MHz 21164              20.4

 RW> How do these HP9000s work so fast with such a low clock speed?

Simple, they have a more _efficient_ instruction set. Clock speed
ins't everything you know. I would assume that the CPU in question is
also superscalar too. Also, things like memory speed can really hurt
the performance. You come to a point where your CPU could be running
in hundreds of GHz but still not preform better... memory and cache
systems now has a greater impact then before, and HP is certainly
among the people that I have respect for in the sense of building
technically wise machnies. I have a bunch of CPU boards out of an HP 9000/300
which holds 68030 at 25 MHz and a 68882 and sure enougth, they had
onboard cache... these guys have done it a long time and they learned
a lot on their first RISC CPU which was a major failure at first, but
they learned from it.

Personally I don't give much notice about the MHz that an CPU holds,
it's the preformance of MY favorite applications in the total system
which counts... everything else is possibly a indicator on good or bad.

 RW> The Alpha CPU is clearly a savage device.  The 600 MHz one dissipates 
 RW> 45 watts, which raises some extreme cooling problems.

Soon we must abandon aircooled CPUs or at least find a neater way to
cool them, it is no longer sufficient to trow in an fan somewhere in
the chassi... the "PC Industry" must find a concept in which cooling
and power of the CPU and nearby cursuitry is safely solved. Not a
single machine in the PC world have impressed me, take a peak into an
HP 9000/725 workstation and think about those solutions. You only need
to remove a total of 2 screws to remove everything covering the
motherboard (and that includes the lid).

Thanks for all the pointers and info...

Cheers,
Magnus