K6-III Vs K6-2+

[imported_goku]

Which would you prefer? The K6-2+ runs cooler and is suppose to have more advanced 3D now instructions while the K6-III has 256K cache opposed to 128...

 

[dug777]

umm i have a 'chomper' (which ever one that is) and it is pretty awful..

where's the option for 'i'd rather have root canal work done without painkiller'?

 

[imported_goku]

You have the original K6-2...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K6-2

The CXT is suppose to be much better, and how do you know it's the processor holding you back and not the motherboard?? I had a PII 333mhz based dell and it was the slowest POS in the world, it made a 486 look like a speed demon, with it's 30 minute-1 hour load up of windows.... Most systems I've used that were slow were slow because of a crappy motherboard, not because of the processor, this would explain why AMD has had such a bad rep in the past, since they associated themselves with computer companies like that.

 

[dguy6789]

Originally posted by: goku
You have the original K6-2...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K6-2

The CXT is suppose to be much better, and how do you know it's the processor holding you back and not the motherboard?? I had a PII 333mhz based dell and it was the slowest POS in the world, it made a 486 look like a speed demon, with it's 30 minute-1 hour load up of windows.... Most systems I've used that were slow were slow because of a crappy motherboard, not because of the processor, this would explain why AMD has had such a bad rep in the past, since they associated themselves with computer companies like that.

Something must have been wrong with your Pentium 2 or mainboard, as you suggest. One of my machines consists of a Pentium 2 333Mhz with 384MB of memory, and it boots up to WinXP in around a minute.

I would take the K6 III over any K6 2 model. The extra cache helps quite a bit on those older processors. Think clock for clock difference of a Willamette P4 and Willamette Celeron. While the Willy P4 is slow by todays standards, it would completely crush the Celeron at the same clock speed with the only difference being level 2 cache.

 

[Zap]

K6-2 < K6-III < K6-2+

K6-2 has L2 cache on motherboard

K6-III adds L2 cache on chip so motherboard becomes L3 cache

K6-2+ is like K6-III but with less on chip cache but runs cooler, clocks higher.

 

[cmrmrc]

chomper is K6-2....i had one of those back then at 450mhz...and it was pretty bad...couldn't even run AOE2X 1v1 without lagging...K6-III is pretty much better than K6-2...remember AMD used K6-III to compete against PIII (even if it didn't even have a slight chance) when K7 weren't there yet.

and K6-III's prices were like the double of K6-2 back then...

 

[F1shF4t]

i cant remember, but i had a k6-2 or k6-2+, 500mhz, and that chip was sweet, was my first ever comp i got working got it in the day of when p4's came out.
And honestly saying after a while that comp was so unstable that its not funny, crashed instaling windows, now thinking back on it i think it was the ram.

Once dissabled L2 and L1 cache, it took 48 hours to install windows

the good old days....


Although clock for clock the performance of k6-2 wasnt too bad compared the the pentium 3 i think.
Although it was rather slow had problems playing red alert 2 on it well, but it could have been the slow gfx card.

 

[dguy6789]

Originally posted by: Zap
K6-2 < K6-III < K6-2+

K6-2 has L2 cache on motherboard

K6-III adds L2 cache on chip so motherboard becomes L3 cache

K6-2+ is like K6-III but with less on chip cache but runs cooler, clocks higher.

The lack of cache the K6 2+ has compared to the K6 3 negates any clock speed you could achieve.

K6-III 450Mhz is faster than a K6-II+ at 550Mhz.

 

[rancherlee]

the K6-2+ are still worth a decent chunk of change yet, I have a 500mhz in my parts bin and I checked Egay just for the hells of it and they still sell for 30-40$

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
The lack of cache the K6 2+ has compared to the K6 3 negates any clock speed you could achieve.

K6-III 450Mhz is faster than a K6-II+ at 550Mhz.

"Lack" of cache depends on the software you are running as some are more sensitive to that than others. The + still runs cooler than the III even with the higher clock, plus it could in some cases overclock even higher.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Originally posted by: dguy6789

Originally posted by: Zap
K6-2 < K6-III < K6-2+

K6-2 has L2 cache on motherboard

K6-III adds L2 cache on chip so motherboard becomes L3 cache

K6-2+ is like K6-III but with less on chip cache but runs cooler, clocks higher.

The lack of cache the K6 2+ has compared to the K6 3 negates any clock speed you could achieve.

K6-III 450Mhz is faster than a K6-II+ at 550Mhz.

The K6-2 has no integrated L2 cache, but the K6-2+ has a on-die L2 128KB cache and it's only slower than the K6-3 by a few percent. It doesn't matter anyway, all K6s sucked at games compared to the Pentium IIs and Celerons back at the time.

 

[MadRat]

Thread re-awakening? Not really. Just a recent conversation on turning K6-ii+ into K6-iii+, vice versa.

SUCCESSFUL K6-2+ to K6-3+ Full Cache Enable Mod - Page 7 \ VOGONS

www.vogons.org

For those nostalgic on K6III...

 

[Thunder 57]

Thread re-awakening? Not really. Just a recent conversation on turning K6-ii+ into K6-iii+, vice versa.

SUCCESSFUL K6-2+ to K6-3+ Full Cache Enable Mod - Page 7 \ VOGONS

www.vogons.org

For those nostalgic on K6III...

Holy necro. I thought this was a new post at first and thought someone was just trolling. or looking for lulz. I had a K6-2 500MHz. I could have had a PII 450MHz but I didn't realize what on die L2 cache was back then. Also I'm sure the PII had a better FPU. AMD relied on 3DNow before it had a comparable FPU with K7.

 

[StinkyPinky]

Nothing like a 16 year necro to confuse people. My smartwatch probably has a more powerful CPU

 

[MadRat]

K6-II+ and K6-III+ were the second generation, using half the on-die cache as K6-III but also enjoyed a smaller die process because it was meant for laptops at the time. Never had one running, although I saw them after I had ditched all my S7 stuff. P2 was Slot-1 and it really didn't live very long. I could get only 550Mhz *fairly stable* out of a P2 back in the day. The original $100 Celerons didn't mind 450Mhz on Slot 1 nor did they disappoint for raw speeds on Socket 370 by running 600MHz on the earliest versions using cheap VIA dual CPU boards. P!!! were also burners from the get go. The first P!!! I had ran 850MHz from day 1.

AMD really didn't win overclockers back after the K6-2 days until Athlons. K6III was way too late to the game. And early K6III hit brick walls well below PIII and Celerons onSocket 370 by then. My first Athlon (Pluto) easily ran at 700MHz after some solder work; later on I took it up to 900MHz with a monster heatsink and cache speed ratio drop. It chugged away without problems for years as my SMB server; not bad for a chip originally bought at 550MHz. But the Durons came out on cheap Socket A boards and I was getting over 900MHz for a $60 chip on a sub $50 mainboard. It easily played my Quake III better than the P!!!, but I think it was because the P!!! motherboards were fairly vanilla at the time and my AGP drivers were much better with the Duron's motherboard. And it wasn't long before Athlon XPs cranked up past 1.0 GHz and P4's on Socket 423 with RDRAM were coming out. Seems like only yesterday.

A lot later I messed with a K6III-400 and it struggled at 550MHz, but it wasn't mine to break so I never really pushed it.

 

[UsandThem]

Holy necro. I thought this was a new post at first and thought someone was just trolling. or looking for lulz. I had a K6-2 500MHz. I could have had a PII 450MHz but I didn't realize what on die L2 cache was back then. Also I'm sure the PII had a better FPU. AMD relied on 3DNow before it had a comparable FPU with K7.

Same here.

I thought for sure it was gonna be some kind of "special pills" spammer.

K6-2+ / K6-III are two names you don't see at all nowadays.

My first build was with a K6-2 (non +). Of course the + version was released like 4 months after I bought the K6-2. Intel's PII was way better of course, but it was way too much $$$ for me compared to the AMD build. Those prices back then:

https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/intel-to-cut-pentium-ii-prices/

 

[MadRat]

My P2-266 only cost $385 back in the day. I paid $500 for the Athlon (Pluto). People were paying well over $1,000 for the best Athlons. The top P4's weren't much cheaper. Memory was the real wallet squeezer at the time. My memory cost way more than the CPU.

 

[lightmanek]

I had all K6 processors - K6, K6-2, K6-III and currently have K6-2+ somewhere in the old motherboard.
Very fond memories of going from K6-2 333 OC to 450 to a K6-III 350 OC to 400. The K6-III was massively faster at games and most applications despite having 50MHz deficit.

 

[ElFenix]

i never had socket 7 of any sort (socket 8!) but i have a bunch K6s in a box.
every once in a while i poke around on ebay but those boards are a bit too spendy.
i swear i had a 486 board with pci slots on it but can't seem to find any substantiation that such a thing even existed.

 

[MadRat]

PCI did exist on 486 mainboards, but with much lower pin counts than today's PCIe. In the early days they were garbage, so no small wonder why difficult to find. ISA and VESA were solid standards in comparison.

 

[Thibsie]

Had K6-200, K6-2-450

PCI did exist on 486 mainboards, but with much lower pin counts than today's PCIe. In the early days they were garbage, so no small wonder why difficult to find. ISA and VESA were solid standards in comparison.

Lower pin counts? What's that ? Just plain PCI 32/33. What else ?

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I think I still had a K62 500@550 when I joined here. The timeframe was close anyways. Moved to a Duron 600@1GHz next. What a massive upgrade that was.

 

[MadRat]

Had K6-200, K6-2-450

Lower pin counts? What's that ? Just plain PCI 32/33. What else ?

PCI originally was 32 bits wide at 33MHz and came out in 5v or 3.3v, but not always both because it wasn't an industry-wide standard yet. And some motherboard makers allowed up/down clock on PCI, by moving jumpers. Most were tied to the CPU clock, so if you ran 38 or40 on the CPU bus then PCI ran that, too. The DX2/100 board we had allowed 50MHz on the PCI, a sure way to burn cards. It was chaotic. Then it evolved to 64 bits under multiple competing standards. It made the chaos worse.

But that 3.3v / 5v issue was probably the worst issue. You could burn out $1,000 expansion cards if you did not know what you had.

 

[Thibsie]

PCI originally was 32 bits wide at 33MHz and came out in 5v or 3.3v, but not always both because it wasn't an industry-wide standard yet. And some motherboard makers allowed up/down clock on PCI, by moving jumpers. Most were tied to the CPU clock, so if you ran 38 or40 on the CPU bus then PCI ran that, too. The DX2/100 board we had allowed 50MHz on the PCI, a sure way to burn cards. It was chaotic. Then it evolved to 64 bits under multiple competing standards. It made the chaos worse.

But that 3.3v / 5v issue was probably the worst issue. You could burn out $1,000 expansion cards if you did not know what you had.

Oh that's what you were referring to. Indeed usually 5V on consumer boards. PCI cards/slots were supposed to be keyed to prevent this but in practice...
And yes the PCI frequency often was, creative lol. It was useful for small free oc but going to far was often catastrophic.

 

[Zor Prime]

First box I built was a K6 266@300.

K6 got flack for its FPU but I didn't have any issues running games.

Ended the K6 series with a K6-3+ 450@550 on a FIC VA-503+ motherboard.

It'd do 600 but wouldn't pass benchmarks without throwing errors sometimes so I left it at 550.

Quake 2 3DNow! patch was rad.