AMD K6/2 faster than a 933MHz Pentium II?

[kony]

Don't forget Dave, it wasn't always easy for us (or at least for me) when we
were learning. I'll always remember the sense of achievement I got when I
got my Pentium 200 MMX running stably at 250Mhz on an 83MHz FSB. That was
one fast machine. <g>.

Yes, you're right... but look at how long this thread was to
install a K6-2. IMO, there are some occasions where a new
Dell doesn't look so bad.

If I was Donald, playing with old PCs, I'd get a socket 370 board that
supports Coppermines (Maybe a Slot 1 with slocket) and have a play with some
of the Celerons in the ~600Mhz range. They should be cheap enough, several
times faster than what he's currently playing with, and eminently
overclockable. I've had the only two 600s I've owned running stably at 900.
Quite a usable machine for very little money.

Yes that would do well for the intended purpose, but read
over the whole thread and then tell me if you think o'c is a
good idea for his (situation).

Even cheaper, get a Mendicino 400. Not a bad little work-horse. Hell, if he
wasn't on the other side of the world from me I'd give him one, and probably
a mobo too. I have at least 3 Celly 400's in my CPU drawer. One or two 500's
as well, *and* my two Coppermine 600's. They're not worth selling and I
can't bring myself to throw them out. :-(

Coppermine 600 do well for passively cooled fileservers.
I've had some running a touch under 1.35V and the 'sink felt
stone cold on an OS using ACPI with no fan.

It seems we're a dying breed mate. Just about everyone I know is buying Dell
etc. these days. So cheap! I used to build quite a few machines for friends,
save them some money and they'd get a good, solid machine. Now, there are
Dells around at less than I can build a machine for. Granted they're crap
but everything is made to be thrown away in a couple years these days
anyway. I've heard people say "So what if it craps out afer the warranty is
up? I'll have got my money's worth, I'll just get another, faster one".

I don't think they know what they're missing though, usually
I see those types of users spending another couple hundred
(US) $ ever two years (on average) when their uses would've
been fullfilled if they'd only spent around $60 more for a
better board, fans and power a few years ago. Dell
certainly has some cheap boxes now but for those of us who
realize the drawbacks of integrated video or sound, a
Celeron skt 478, etc, there's not much left to want.

I had a Dell 2.4GHz Celeron box here till a few days ago...
had most of the Dell factory installation on it, ran
dog-slow and only did the basics. Complete waste of $ for
the person who bought it as I could've slapped together some
old $80 box that'd done everything that user did, as well
and as fast.

Very sad. When I started playing with hardware the average PC cost 4 times
what it does now and the average wage was probably half. It was worth
knowing how to upgrade and build machines then, I had good systems and could
help friends. Practical, you could save money. Now it's just a hobby that
actually costs me money truth-be-told.

Yep, it certainly does add up in cost after awhile, but then
again there are still perks like having the spare parts to
get any system fixed in a few minutes, or pop out a new one
should it be needed. Funny thing is I now always have at
least 3 systems under my main-use desk at home at any moment
and 2 KVMs. If I ever needed to watch several TV shows,
play a couple games simultaneously and also get worth done,
all I'd need to do is clone myself a few times and buy some
more chairs.

 

[Donald McTrevor]

On Thu, 11 Aug 2005 23:41:50 GMT, "Donald McTrevor"

<snip>




Hmmmmm.

You seem to have forgotten to mention that it wasn't
application performance that you were trying to improve but
rather boot time.

Some application performance is done at boot tine.
And A long boot time would not be OK even if the machine was
generally faster, which it obviously wouldnt be.

 

[Donald McTrevor]

It is reporting CPU specs, apparently.

There is no point in wondering, benchmark the cache.



It is a great place to put it. The cache is part of the
chipset and motherboard, not the CPU.



Why would you need to cut & paste it?
Just look at the graph and note where it drops. There
should be a sharp decline in memory throughput right after
512K.

thats a bit vague.

 

[Donald McTrevor]

OK... I tried the new J18 setting (sync/async) and rebooted, it rebooted in
2:23 which is OK but a little slower than the 2:11 for the cyrix, but 'not
bad',
and fairlt proportional to the bus speed ratio 66/75 =0.88 (131s/143s)
=0.91.
However I think it has booted at a similar speed before without the J18
change
so I am not sure of the reason why.

Anyway I did the Sandra cache benchemark.
cryix k6 k6 with new J18 (or the quick boot)
Combo 128 87 94
speed 22.8 3.6 4.6
2kb 751 176 237 MB/s
4 776 176 206
8 772 172 186
16 772 166 178
32 769 157 161
64 464 135 132
128 151 103 103
256 72 87 103
512kb 54 74 82
1 meg 41 61 64
4 35 50 52
16 35 50 52
64 meg 35 49 54 MB/s

Actally these figures tell a story, the Cyrix is much better at some things
than the K6, over 4 times.
It also seems that I don't do much of what the K2 is good at (multimedia
maths)
but a lot of what it is bad at - shifting smallish blocks of data about.
I played poker with it but it seems a fair bit slower than the cyrix.
YEs if you want to draw a mandlebrok fractal the K2 is great, but I don't
do much of that.

 

[Donald McTrevor]

It is reporting CPU specs, apparently.

There is no point in wondering, benchmark the cache.



It is a great place to put it. The cache is part of the
chipset and motherboard, not the CPU.



Why would you need to cut & paste it?
Just look at the graph and note where it drops. There
should be a sharp decline in memory throughput right after
512K.

What I have noticed is the the Cyrix out performs the K6 by
a factor of about three on moving smallish (>64KB) data
and that is the sort of thing my computer tends to be doing a lot.
It was even miles slower doing this running at 6X66=400Mhx.
The K2 would need to be running at 1000Mhz or more to beat the
cyrix in that respect.

 

[kony]

Actally these figures tell a story, the Cyrix is much better at some things
than the K6, over 4 times.

Cache transfer or memory isn't a "thing", you would have to
bechmark actual applications (or synthetically simulate them
with unassocated bechmarks) to determine this.

It also seems that I don't do much of what the K2 is good at (multimedia
maths)
but a lot of what it is bad at - shifting smallish blocks of data about.
I played poker with it but it seems a fair bit slower than the cyrix.
YEs if you want to draw a mandlebrok fractal the K2 is great, but I don't
do much of that.

Actually, K6-2 is horrible at that too compared to a
Celeron. At this point there is no real purpose to the
thread except to note that your observations seem to be
about what your particular motherboard and settings produce.
It's true that there isn't much difference between a
K6-2/300 and a Cyrix 225, but K6-2/400 or higher should have
significantly better performance at ALL things.

"Significant" is only relative to that era though, as
mentioned initially if you really want a substantial overall
performance increase you need to replace the _ENTIRE_
system.

 

[kony]

Some application performance is done at boot tine.

? Not applicable to most uses.

And A long boot time would not be OK even if the machine was
generally faster, which it obviously wouldnt be.

Nope, the only thing obvious is that you're guessing. A
boot-time over 2 minutes is incredibly long for any
configuration you've been running.

 

[kony]

thats a bit vague.

Yes, I"m not going to write paragraph after paragraph when
less will suffice. The graphs make it quite clear where L2
cache is exceeded and main memory becomes the bottleneck.

 

[~misfit~]

Yes, you're right... but look at how long this thread was to
install a K6-2. IMO, there are some occasions where a new
Dell doesn't look so bad.

I hadn't looked in here for a while and there were well over 1,000 posts.
This one was near the top. When I replied I didn't realise that nearly half
the posts were from Donald on this same subject.

Yes that would do well for the intended purpose, but read
over the whole thread and then tell me if you think o'c is a
good idea for his (situation).

Yeah, point taken. A Dell would be good for him methinks.

Coppermine 600 do well for passively cooled fileservers.
I've had some running a touch under 1.35V and the 'sink felt
stone cold on an OS using ACPI with no fan.

They *are* excellent CPUs. I've even had one running XP SP2 and it's easilly
responsive enough for everyday use like emailing, simple wordprocessing,
surfing etc.

I don't think they know what they're missing though, usually
I see those types of users spending another couple hundred
(US) $ ever two years (on average) when their uses would've
been fullfilled if they'd only spent around $60 more for a
better board, fans and power a few years ago. Dell
certainly has some cheap boxes now but for those of us who
realize the drawbacks of integrated video or sound, a
Celeron skt 478, etc, there's not much left to want.

I'd never buy one myself. I've been building my own since the end of the 486
era. Even if it costs me more tha a Dell I know I'm getting better gear.

I had a Dell 2.4GHz Celeron box here till a few days ago...
had most of the Dell factory installation on it, ran
dog-slow and only did the basics. Complete waste of $ for
the person who bought it as I could've slapped together some
old $80 box that'd done everything that user did, as well
and as fast.

See my Celeron 600/XP comment above. On a clean install, without a lot of
guff running it would probably be as fast as one of these Dells
out-of-the-box.

Yep, it certainly does add up in cost after awhile, but then
again there are still perks like having the spare parts to
get any system fixed in a few minutes, or pop out a new one
should it be needed. Funny thing is I now always have at
least 3 systems under my main-use desk at home at any moment
and 2 KVMs. If I ever needed to watch several TV shows,
play a couple games simultaneously and also get worth done,
all I'd need to do is clone myself a few times and buy some
more chairs.

LOl, I have four PCs here on my LAN. My main two (Barton and T'bred B) on a
KVM on my desk, another running as a jukebox (Celly Tui 1.4/440BX) and
another just because (Celly Tui 1.3/440BX). Those Tualatin/440BX combos are
surprisingly powerful considering their age. I just need some PCI IDE
controllers for them as the BX chipset is only ATA33 and that really
bottle-necks them.

Cheers,

 

[half_pint]

? Not applicable to most uses.



Nope, the only thing obvious is that you're guessing. A
boot-time over 2 minutes is incredibly long for any
configuration you've been running.

It's not that long if your run Zone Alarm at boot up.

 

[kony]

It's not that long if your run Zone Alarm at boot up.

Some version of Zone Alarm is buggy and hangs for dozens of
seconds?

Perhaps I should restate what I wrote, that if a system is
taking that long to boot there is either a configuration
problem or it's loading disproportionately more than
appropriate. In other words, the problem with performance
may not be the CPU at all but the mere 128MB of memory.

 

[Donald McTrevor]

Some version of Zone Alarm is buggy and hangs for dozens of
seconds?

Perhaps I should restate what I wrote, that if a system is
taking that long to boot there is either a configuration
problem or it's loading disproportionately more than
appropriate. In other words, the problem with performance
may not be the CPU at all but the mere 128MB of memory.

The version of ZA I have adds about an extra 20 seconds to the boot time
for some reason.
There seems to be a minimum boot time which you cant go below
even with a faster processor.
I took the brave step of over clocking my cyrix to 262Mhz from 225Mhz
and the boot time is about the same, although I see about a 15% improvement
in other benchmarks. Seems pretty stable too, I had a couple of glitches
but they may have been from other reasons because I converted a .wmv
to a .mpg and that needed about 20 minutes of 100% CPU.
That was 3.5 X 75 and I may even try 4 X 7.5.
Other speeds I could try are 4.5X, 5X, and 6X. 6X would double the original
3X speed. Hopefully I will get 'warnings' if I go too high.
Even if I do damage the chip I have the K6 to fall back on.

I could try more RAM but the 64MB 72pin sticks are rare, none on Ebay,
and usually pretty expensive on the rare occcasions there are.
Gonna give it a go a 4x. Fingers crossed :O)

 

[Donald McTrevor]

The version of ZA I have adds about an extra 20 seconds to the boot time
for some reason.
There seems to be a minimum boot time which you cant go below
even with a faster processor.
I took the brave step of over clocking my cyrix to 262Mhz from 225Mhz
and the boot time is about the same, although I see about a 15% improvement
in other benchmarks. Seems pretty stable too, I had a couple of glitches
but they may have been from other reasons because I converted a .wmv
to a .mpg and that needed about 20 minutes of 100% CPU.
That was 3.5 X 75 and I may even try 4 X 7.5.
Other speeds I could try are 4.5X, 5X, and 6X. 6X would double the original
3X speed. Hopefully I will get 'warnings' if I go too high.
Even if I do damage the chip I have the K6 to fall back on.

I could try more RAM but the 64MB 72pin sticks are rare, none on Ebay,
and usually pretty expensive on the rare occcasions there are.
Gonna give it a go a 4x. Fingers crossed :O)

Seems like it won't do 4X, came up as 2X, seems like maybe the chip
is 'throttled back', either that or it didn't detect one of the jumpers, but
that
seems pretty unlilkely. I will maybe check 4.5X and 5X some other time.

 

[CBFalconer]

Some version of Zone Alarm is buggy and hangs for dozens of
seconds?

Perhaps I should restate what I wrote, that if a system is
taking that long to boot there is either a configuration
problem or it's loading disproportionately more than
appropriate. In other words, the problem with performance
may not be the CPU at all but the mere 128MB of memory.

I just turned my 486-80 with 64 meg. system on, and started the
stopwatch. It is also running Zone Alarm. At 2.0 minutes I get a
blank screen, at 2:21 a desktop, at 2:40 the DOS window is up, and
at 3:15 ZA is finished loading. Running W98. It's an old ZA, from
2000, 2.1.4 I believe.

 

[kony]

Seems like it won't do 4X, came up as 2X, seems like maybe the chip
is 'throttled back', either that or it didn't detect one of the jumpers, but
that
seems pretty unlilkely. I will maybe check 4.5X and 5X some other time.

It's all pointless.
There is no cost nor time effective upgrade for that system.
$100 used box will run circles around it.

 

[Donald McTrevor]

It's all pointless.
There is no cost nor time effective upgrade for that system.
$100 used box will run circles around it.

True but I can get it to do all the things I want to anyway now as I have
a program to convert .wmv to mpg and using lower resolution an no wallpaper
and a few other tricks, with the Cyrix clocked to M333 I can play to card
tables comfortably, average 75% cpu.

 

[Donald McTrevor]

jumpers,

True but I can get it to do all the things I want to anyway now as I have
a program to convert .wmv to mpg and using lower resolution an no wallpaper
and a few other tricks, with the Cyrix clocked to M333 I can play to card
tables comfortably, average 75% cpu.

Anyway the upshot of it all is that for me the Cyrix is faster than the K6-2
http://www.duxcw.com/digest/guides/cpu/socket7/cyrix/m2.htm
"we review VIA's challenge to the AMD K6-2 processor, the 300 Mhz
Cyrix M II. 300 Mhz? Mega Herz, Smiga Herz... Performance is not always
directly measured by the CPU clock speed. As we will see, this processor
is faster than a 400 Mhz K6-2."

 

[kony]

True but I can get it to do all the things I want to anyway now

Then why did you try to upgrade it?
No, it does not do all the things, because one of those
always-present parameters of use is the time/performance.

as I have
a program to convert .wmv to mpg

What does that have to do with the system? Nothing.
The box is incredibly slow at video compression and a new
system would do it in less than 1/10th the time.

and using lower resolution an no wallpaper
and a few other tricks, with the Cyrix clocked to M333 I can play to card
tables comfortably, average 75% cpu.

Average CPU is not what matters. It's whether the system
respondes well, fast enough during the brief moments when
100% CPU _IS_ called for. The average user does not have
their system always running at 100% either, but does
recognize the performance benefit of a faster system.

 

[kony]

Anyway the upshot of it all is that for me the Cyrix is faster than the K6-2
http://www.duxcw.com/digest/guides/cpu/socket7/cyrix/m2.htm
"we review VIA's challenge to the AMD K6-2 processor, the 300 Mhz
Cyrix M II. 300 Mhz? Mega Herz, Smiga Herz... Performance is not always
directly measured by the CPU clock speed. As we will see, this processor
is faster than a 400 Mhz K6-2."

What's your point in providing that link?
Nobody has argued that "MHz" is the only parameter that
matters in performance. You don't have an MII 300MHz
either.

 

[Donald McTrevor]

Anyway the upshot of it all is that for me the Cyrix is faster than the K6-2
http://www.duxcw.com/digest/guides/cpu/socket7/cyrix/m2.htm
"we review VIA's challenge to the AMD K6-2 processor, the 300 Mhz
Cyrix M II. 300 Mhz? Mega Herz, Smiga Herz... Performance is not always
directly measured by the CPU clock speed. As we will see, this processor
is faster than a 400 Mhz K6-2."

Whatever I know a 400 Mhz would be slower than my Cyrix MII 300
(226Mhz) as I have tred it.