> > >>>I am ordering a Compaq server that will run MS SQL Server. To upgrade > from 256 to 512 pipeline burst cache costs $1000, so I'm told. Is it worth > it? I'm not even sure what pipeline burst cache > is. > >>> > >>>Thanks, > >>>Ross > >> > >>Funny, it cost me about $50. But I don't > use a Compaq. I have been told that with EDO RAM pipeline cache is not as > important as it was. I have not confirmed this but they seemed pretty > confident. If you have a non-EDO RAM memory PC and the Compaq pipeline is > < $100 (like it should be -- or you can search for a better outlet) then it > is worth upgrading to. > >> > >>Tom > >I am no hardware guru, so someone please > correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that the pipeline cache, buffers > I/O to/from the CPU. If you are using the machine as a server and are > interested in moving lots of data, I would recommend that you focus on the > controller and hard drive. A PCI SCSI Caching Controller with 4 or 8 MB > RAM (or more) attached to a good fast SCSI drive will do much more to > increase throughput than worrying about the pipeline cache. > > Your > absolutely right about mass data transfer. But the PLB Cache will cache > instructions. This means instead of the CPU having to fetch from main > memory the CPU first will check the faster PLB Cache to see if what it > needs is there. Especially in older PCs (what is old? (s)) increasing your > PLB Cache from 256 to 512 can be "like" going from 16 to 32 Megs of RAM. I > don't think it is quite as important in the brand new PCs but for the price > of around $50 (last I heard) it may not be a bad idea to get it. I think > it helped my server. It seems interesting that the PLB would help a server, where the main bottleneck is either disk or network related -- hmm. I just realized that I'm thinking Novell again. I suppose if your server is NT you could be running some processor intensive stuff on it. Anyway, I guess my point is that the PLB will have the greatest impact on a processor intensive box, not necessarily a server. To put that in perspective, I have a 386 as my Novell server and a 486 as my NT server. (Yes, they're both slow, but they're comparable to each other.) /Paul