#Help w/Micron Purchase
14 messages in this thread
I am about to order a Micron P120PCI PowerStation Plus to use with 3D Studio,
Photoshop, etc.,
and I have two questions:
1. The system can be purchased with either the Diamond Stealth 64 Video VRAM
/4MB, or the
ATI Graphics Pro Turbo (Mach 64) w/4MB. Does anyone have a
recommendation?
2. Assuming that within 12 months I'll either be running WinNT or Win95 (and
that Win95 gets
rid of the 64MB limit that DOS/Win3.1 has), is there any reason NOT to buy
a 96MB system
(versus a 64MB system) if I can come up with the cash?
Howard,
The new Stealth 64 is not supported by Vibrant for 24bit at this time. I've
heard VESA works, but is slower.
If you are looking to page with 64meg then the 96megs would certainly be worth
the money, no reason not to.
FWIW, I just bought a new machine and decided to get a dual P100 MB. If you're
going to NT much of the NT software should get 80% or so speed increase from
the second chip. It was a gamble on my part with little hard evidence that it
to back it up, but the extra cost now was only about $200. We'll see.<G>
TedB
-Ted Boardman
!^NavFont01F0007MGHHHAE740E
Ted –
I'm in the market for a new computer. We have a Pentium that hubby Joe uses
that is quite adequate for what he does – ACAD, pinball and Civilization <G>. I
have 3DS and Animator Studio loaded on his machine but it's a pain to ask him
to get off his computer if I need to view a library file for example prior to
putting it into the public library.
I'm running an AST 486DX2-66 with 8 meg of ram (8 one meg chips!!!) a 250 meg
hard drive doubled and a Paradise video card with 1 meg of ram. It's done it's
job for me for quite a while but is obviously not adequate for most Autodesk
software.
In your opinion and anyone else who would like to jump in, what is an adequate
system that will allow for NT and/or WIN95 later, let me have ACAD, 3DS, and
Animator on one machine plus Compuserve, word processing and spread sheet. The
use would not be for days long renderings but more of a home user.
Joe likes the Micron P90 Power Station. It has a 256 write-back cache, flash
bios, 4X EIDE CD-ROM, 3.5" floppy, Soundblaster 16, PCI 64-bit graphics
accelerator (2mb), 32 mb ram, 1.2 gig EIDE hard drive, 17" 17fgx, 1280ni,
28mm monitor. That's about the budget.
Suggestions? Anyone?
Anne
Anne,
The Micron as you spec it is fine. More memory will let you do more,
but it isn't likely you'll actually be doing any sizable production in either
AutoCAD or 3DS (or NT) that should call for more than the 32M. Make sure you
have enough modems to go around <g>.
Kevin Krell – Computer Support Associates
Anne,
<< Micron P90 Power Station. >>
I have one and think it's great.
<< 4X EIDE CD-ROM >>
Make sure that it is supported under Windows NT as NT doesn't support many EIDE
CD-ROMs.
<< PCI 64-bit graphics accelerator (2mb) >>
You might want to see if they have a 2mb PCI graphics accelerator that can be
upgraded to 4mb.
Mark
Anne,
The Micron machine should be great in that configuration. The only thing I'd
look to do is go to a 100-120mhz chip. It wouldn't be that much more expensive
over the useful life of the computer (6-8 mo.<G>)
I'd also keep the 486 and use it for all word processing/CIS work…Opps,
there goes the living room decor!
Micron has a great reputation for speed and service.
BTW, does your husband work for "the company"?<g>
TedB
-Ted Boardman
!^NavFont01F0007MGHHH61DBD3
Hi again Anne,
We just bought 10 Micron Pentium 100's w/ 32M ram, 1G hard drive, 4X CD.
Runs NT like a champ. Got it dual booting into 3DS for now. Autocad 13
with Softdesk 7 seems like a lateral move from the DOS version on a
486/66. The new Microsoft Office Pro for NT is FAST on this machine.
We're running a beta release of NT (3.51).
Lee
Larry –
Thanks for the post that the Micron works in a business environment. I doubt
that I would ever push a machine that hard. Any advice on the video card? What
did you get?
Hubby Joe is really pushing me to get the new computer. I keep thinking about
the house repairs that need doing – new blacktop, more landscaping. Guess I'd
better jump on the computer before those bucks go into that dish antenna he
keeps threatening to get. <G>
Anne
I have the Micron P100 w/ Stealth 64 VRAM and that card seems to be
performing just fine. The only thing you want to watch out for is
will it do TrueColor under NT? This will be an issue in the near future.
My Stealth only has 2M and it WILL NOT.
Lee
Lee:
Which video card makes sense for 3DS and NT? Do you know of any cards which
support truecolor under NT? I hadn't anticipated this issue, yikes. 🙁
Bob
So far I haven't seen any 4M video cards yet but I would suspect that if
there is a Stealth 64 with 4M that one will do.
Lee
Matrox's Impression video card is available in a 4mb model. Matrox's 3d
Dynaview software even does "near real-time" rendering within ACAD (layer
colors only, Gouraud shading).
Lee:
I'll have to monitor the video card ads and specs as I gotta make sure that the
new office computers are NT ready. Thanks for waking me up.
Bob
Howard,
I'm looking at Micron also, there is a Mircon Tech REP on the PC Hardware
Forum. His name is Steve Fredricks (CIS# 76450,1645), everyone seems to be very
happy with his help.
If you looking at using a PAR in the future keep in mind that it requires 2
full length slots, side by side. The Micron has only 3 full length slots, here
is Steve's reply to my message:
*********************************************
> Will all 7/8 slots accept full length cards in the MiniTower Chassis? <
No. The limitation is because of the motherboard design (we have to put the
CPU and SIMMs somewhere). The Millennia will only support 3 full length cards,
1 PCI and 2 ISA (of which one is in the shared slot position).
*********************************************
Notice that I said "7/8 slots", the info that they sent me showed the P100
having 3 ISA slots and the P120 had 4 ISA slots. There is an error in there
info, they all have 3 ISA slots.
I like Micron, but I am looking at the custom builders such as JB Hunt(jOeY),
Mark Demazza and Jay Ice. I'm hearing great things about them on the forum. I
wonder if anyone of this forum has had any experience with them?
Hope this helps. If you are thinking about a PAR, then you will want to
consider the number of slots.
Regards………..Rick – Technical Animations