K6-3 400 vs. K6-2 500

[NinthKey]

Okay, so here are the specs for my current system:

- AMD K6-3 400 MHz
- ASUS P5A-B motherboard
- 256 MB PC100 RAM
- 16MB Voodoo Banshee PCI video card
- SB Live! sound card
- 3com PCI ethernet card connected to cable modem
- HP 7200i CD-RW drive

I primarily use my PC for audio production, Internet audio/video, and a few other multimedia apps. Practically all my games are in MAME, so raw polygon crunching is not a major concern of mine.

Thanks to a recent credit in my favor, I am currently able to obtain a K6-2 500 chip for free. Would this chip be worth my time, or would the absence of on-chip L2 cache negate any speed increase?

Advice here would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[cdrakejr]

This article might be of some help:

The Super 7 Upgrade Guide

 

[NinthKey]

cdrakejr: Thanks for the article. I think I'll just upgrade to an Athlon system instead. (And before you ask, no, Intel is not an option for me...)

 

[Vegito]

Wow, I just got a euro version of k6-3 @ 333, plan to oc it using 75 FSB or so (old motherboard) and it's gonna perform like a 400+.... 40 bucks... not bad..

 

[cdrakejr]

NinthKey,

Now why would I want to do that? Unless maybe you just like spending more for less!

If you are going to look at moving up to Tbird, then you might want to hold off a few weeks. Rumor has it that another price drop will take effect when the next speed grades are introduced in October. It just keeps getting better for AMD fans!!!!!

Good luck with your new system.

 

[NinthKey]

cdrakejr: To be honest, I wasn't planning on finishing the upgrade until November at the earliest, suspecting that there might be a holiday season price drop.

Of course, I may just hold off on an upgrade until next year and put this credit toward a faster CD-RW drive instead. For what I'm using it for now, my K6-3 400 system isn't really slow at all, save for a few high-end audio processing jobs. The 4x/2x HP CD-RW drive I have now, though, is getting to be a bottleneck.

-David, or maybe I'll get a TiVo...

 

[cdrakejr]

I should have posted this Duron review for you. It includes the K6 in the benchmarks and shows the kind of improvements over a K-6.
Aces Hardware

Also, just posted was this article:
Upgrading from a K6-2 to a Duron

If you are in no hurry then by early next year you will also have the new Mustang core Athlons and DDRSDRAM motherboards to consider:
Palomino, Mustang and Morgan
Aces Hardware

A good AMD fan site is: AMD Zone

A lot of interesting new things are coming down the road, so if you are going to wait then go for that new Plextor CD-RW for now!

 

[kmike75]

Ok, I think this post was about an upgrade from a K6-3-400 to a K6-2-500...... I currently have a 500-2 in the living room and a 400-3 in the kids room. BOTH are on a Gigabyte GA5AX. They have the same CD ROM, Hard Drive, Video Card, and Sound Card. If there IS a difference, I can not see it. If I were to upgrade, I would pick up a Thunderbird 750 and an Abit motherboard. Then, I'd overclock to about 900mhz. Oh, wait minute,,, that's what's in my computer room...