First post, by LunarG
- Rank
- Oldbie
I have a SiS471 based 486 motherboard. This has the regular cache setup with 8 sockets for cache + 1 socket for tag ram. There is also a marking on the PCB for another socket, and according to the manual, the board requires an Alter RAM for write-back caching. But going by the fact that the BIOS lets me set cache to write-back, and the fact that write-back DOES indeed offer increased performance (at least in benchmarks), it does seem to work. However, I am considering adding a socket in the position marked out for the Alter RAM.
So my question is: Will adding that Alter RAM offer any benefits? Am I likely to see an increase in performance? Will it increase the cacheable area?
Does anyone have any experience with other boards using Alter RAM? (I imagine it may be the same as dirty tag) Looking at the theory behind cache policies, having that extra cache chip seems like it could make sense.
WinXP : PIII 1.4GHz, 512MB RAM, 73GB SCSI HDD, Matrox Parhelia, SB Audigy 2.
Win98se : K6-3+ 500MHz, 256MB RAM, 80GB HDD, Matrox Millennium G400 MAX, Voodoo 2, SW1000XG.
DOS6.22 : Intel DX4, 64MB RAM, 1.6GB HDD, Diamond Stealth64 DRAM, GUS 1MB, SB16.