> If you're keen to pursue this hack, you might like to consider that the
> six-slot Mac Tsunami mother-boards - as used in the 9500, 9600 and 
> some clones
> - have dual PCI controllers. In other words the PCI is split - top 
> three slots
> to one controller, bottom three slots to the other. There's an Apple 
> tech note
> describing how the split works. You'll have to look it up, though.
>
> So - given that QX loads the PCI bus to the max, the wise hacker would 
> take a
> six-slot Mac, dedicate one group of three to graphics with their 
> Radeon card in
> there, and devote the other group to (say) multi-channel music cards or
> whatever. Split and balance the load, anyway. I'm sure you get the 
> idea.

I hadn't thought of this.  It's an An excellent point.  It would be 
hard to tell if this slot comparison would make any difference or not, 
due to the subjective nature of the QE tests over PCI. No quantitative 
benchmark I've seen really seems legit for comparing PCI QE to no QE 
save %CPU WindowServer values through top, which totally favor PCI QE.

As I understand it, there's one overall system PCI bus.  There are two 
controllers bridged together both of which dump bits onto the overall 
PCI bus.  Each chip controls 3 slots, and each controller has a 
preferable bus-mastering slot.

For the first chip it is slot #1 and for the second chip I think it's 
#4.  That's why they say to always put controller cards in the first 
slot. For the s900 it's bandit to another PPB and with Apple it's 
bandit-bandit.

It couldn't hurt though.  I've read it's s900 taboo to put the video 
card in anything but the 2nd slot.

-Charles


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