Saturday, January 10:
I received two days ago another Federal Express box sent to me by Cyrix Corp., this time with a beautiful Chaintech 5SDA motherboard and a shiny new 6x86MX-PR233 processor. This is a new revision (1.6) of the 6x86MX processor. I don't know if this is a 0.25 micron CPU, and I don't know what changes Cyrix made to the 6x86MX mask, but it seems this CPU runs cooler than previous revisions, and I was able to reliably overclock this part all the way up to 208MHz (2.5x83). My grateful thanks to the Cyrix people :).
You will find a complete description of the motherboard on my Motherboards page, and a JPEG picture of the CPU on the 6x86MX page. I just put them on my flatbed scanner and "scanned" them!
I am a little bit behind my benchmarking schedule, but I just got a new Linux-related assignment which is going to keep me very busy for the next three weeks. I am also working on some Linux kernel code that I would like to get finished next week, and on top of all that I am working on a new release of set6x86, with some support for AMD K6 processors.
Sunday,
January 4:
I assembled the 180 MHz Media GX motherboard that Cyrix Corp. sent me in a small tower case ($40), added 8Mb of EDO DRAM ($30) and a clone NE-2000 network adapter ($20), plus of course a keyboard and mouse ($25). No hard disk, no floppy drive, this will be a diskless workstation I will be testing by remote booting from an NFS server (a 6x86MX machine with a 4Gb hard disk). I have noticed the Media GX motherboard has a video output for connection to a TV set, but I will be using it with a commodity 14" SVGA monitor.
If we assume the Media GX motherboard I received can be manufactured for < $100, this entire machine as it stands now could cost as low as $200 (without monitor). Also note that Linux kernels can directly run Java binaries with a Linux-native Java Virtual Machine based on Sun's JDK 1.1.
Given some Java software tools and applications, this would be an ideal setup for small workgroups, with very low total operating costs. We can imagine the following setup:
A 5-user workgroup would be well served with $3K of hardware (including laser printer and ISDN modem), and by using Java programs which would be stored and updated in the central server, would have very low maintenance/software costs: no virus problems, software updates in a few minutes, etc. If you have ever managed a network with a few dozen users, you know what I am talking about.
NS/Cyrix has already demonstrated a complete Home Theater PC at Comdex last year, based on a Media GX processor. Perhaps they could think about a Small Business setup for this year, using GNU/Linux and Java tools, with 6x86MXi and Media GXm processors?
You'll find a few Media GX benchmark results this coming week on these pages.
Last updated on January 10, 1998.
Copyright 1997, 1998 Andrew D. Balsa
