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- Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
- Path: sparky!uunet!usc!rpi!gilem
- From: gilem@aix.rpi.edu (Michael R. Gile)
- Subject: Re: Who makes VESA local bus motherboards?
- Message-ID: <m_1yrl+@rpi.edu>
- Nntp-Posting-Host: aix.rpi.edu
- Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY
- References: <1992Sep4.171550.17522@grebyn.com> <Bu2soo.LKH@news.cso.uiuc.edu>
- Distribution: usa
- Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 14:49:33 GMT
- Lines: 43
-
- In article <Bu2soo.LKH@news.cso.uiuc.edu> jas37876@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (John A. Slagel) writes:
- >richk@grebyn.com (Richard Krehbiel) writes:
- >
- >>...and, from whom could I purchase one? Would an EISA bus be cheaper?
- >
- >>Another related question:
- >
- >>A comparison benchmark I saw recently (sorry, I don't recall where) of
- >>local bus video has an interesting statistic. It showed that all the
- >>local bus video cards (well, the ones they tested) only provide a 16
- >>bit memory interface. This was apparent from the benchmarks; moving
- >>DWORDs was no faster than moving WORDs. I can understand why this
- >>would be, since all the local bus video cards use the same 16 bit
- >>chips (S3, ET4000) as are used in ISA bus cards.
- >
- >>So, does anyone know if there are any VGA cards for local bus with a
- >>*real* 32 bit data path?
- >
- > The VESA standard for local bus isn't expected till later this year.
- > So, for now, nobady makes one.
- > I think the reason they dont use 32-bit access is because all the
- > software written now doesn't, so it would mess things up.
- >
- >--
- >------------------------------------------------------------------------
- > John A. Slagel "My old man used to tell me, before he left this
- > j-slagel1@uiuc.edu shitty world, never chase buses or women- you
- > always get left behind." -The Marlboro Man
-
- The VESA local bus standard was voted on in July, and the decision was
- made to accept it. Currently there are only a few vendors which make
- such motherboards. Micronics (who chaired the VESA commitee, and
- sell motherboards to Gateway), Zeos, and another company who's name
- escapes me at the moment. The latter motherboards are sold in machines
- by Cornell computer and are a combination of VESA and EISA, the best of
- both worlds, I think. As far as I know, there are no VGA card with
- 32bit path that are made fast enough for local bus. Now that there is
- some kind of standard though, they are sure to be coming soon. Therefore,
- I think that it would be wise to choose VESA now, if you need to buy a
- computer.
-
- mike
-
-