>> I hope to get a EISA motherboard system tomorrow. The shop tells me
>> that VLB will be faster than EISA. Is this always the case? If I can use
>> VLB cards, then there's a VESA slot, right?
Yes, if you have a VESA local bus slot, then a VLB ATI Ultra Pro should be
faster than the EISA version. Also, it would make more sense to conserve your
EISA/ISA slots, since there are not all that many VESA expansion boards that
you could put in your machine as opposed to EISA/ISA expansion boards.
EISA use to be the bus of choice for faster disk operations with as SCSI
controller. However, some vendors are now selling ISA bus systems with VESA
local bus IDE disk controllers. I believe DELL's new XPS line offers three
VESA slots (video, disk, and network) + 3 ISA slots on an ISA bus.