Always worth tinkering with this stuff....this is the same test conditions as above (sounds of gnome running in fs-uae), however this time the board is fitted with AGP nvidia NV18 [GeForce4 MX 4000] & 2 x 256MB dimms (1 in each channel for double data rate), so with ram bus @800mhz and half the ramfield size...
I recall playing with these boards years ago trying to increase thruput...like this, it regains 6% cpu time on X, and although 160% on fs-uae looks high, it is rock solid..about +/- 2% ; previously it was much more dynamic at +/-25% -- anectodally, I used to wish they made an AGP ethercard for these things (gpus make for good packet switchers B). I'm not sure if there's a lot more to gain...hmmm.. does debian still carry supports for these old nv chips?...hmmm...