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K6III+

weesa20

Junior Member
Just wondering if anyone has worked witht he new K6III+? I have see some offered online so I will probably pick one up since I am not ready for a complete system upgrade. They seem to be highly overclockable...the MoBos seem to be the limiting factor.
 
I have one in one of the kids PC's as an upgrade from an MMX233. Its pretty darn nice. A HUGE improvement from the 233. Your mobo has to have a 2.0-2.1 Vcore to use it. This $50 upgrade was like getting a whole new PC. For help on this chip go to the K6x forum.

You don't say what you are currently running. It's hard to say if the upgrade is worth it without knowing that info.
 
I am currently running a k62-400 @ 500 on a FIC PA-2013 MoBo with 2 MB cache. I know the board will handle the upgrade well and should run at 600+ MHZ. It will currently run at both 100X5 or 112x4.5 (with L2 off.) It is slower in benchmarks with the cache off (as expected) so I am interested to see what the K6III+ with do since it has its own onboard L2 cache(running at 112x5.5-6) vs. the L3 cache on running at 100x6. I am hoping that overall system performance will increase since the PCIs and AGP? will be running at a higher than normal spec.
 
Hmmm. I dont know if you will see that dramatic of an improvement. I think some of the people at that forum I mentioned have done a change such as yours. You may want to check to see what you can expect.
 
I have a K6-3+(see my cool rigs) system and it works great but I doubt you will see much of an increase in proformance over your K6-2 400@500. I would save the money for a new motherboard and processor.
 
I agree with Shawn, if you have anything near 500mhz, unless you simply just have to peak out your motherboard with one of the rarest CPUs on Earth, then upgrade to a new motherboard and CPU.

the only reason I can see you upgrading further, is that you have to realize that in most cases, the K6-3 outperforms the K6-2 so much that the K6-2 needs about 100mhz extra to tie or beat it.
so, a K6-3+ at 500mhz would guarantee you an ok performance increase over your current setup, but not TOO much.

if I were you, I'd get one anyway, simply becuase it's a rare CPU, and it's so damned cheap!
 
I currently have a AMD k6-3+ 450 @ 550 with a VA-503+ motherboard. Not too bad, had to flash the BIOS to a new version in order for it to recognize the new processor. Yes, they are good OC projects. My father is running his k6-3+ 450 at 616 (or 619, can't remember, but it's up there in the 610-620 range) and is stable.

I got mine from Tiger Direct at $49.99, can't remember the final cost, though. Not a bad upgrade, seeing is how I used to have a k6-2 350 in this rig.

 
I have a K63+ 450 @ 660 @ 2.1v and is rock solid on an Asus P5A revision 1.04 mobo. I have read that Asus P5A revision 1.05 and higher do not work with the K63+.
 
I just installed a K6-III+ 450 @ 600MHz cpu into my back-up pc, a Compaq Presario 5190,..........
I had previously run a K6-II+ 500 @ 600MHz.................!
No bench marks to back me up, but I can tell you all there is a BIG difference in performance..!!!
There is a noticeable increase in the speed of the K6-III+ over the K6-II+,.... and in my opinion,.... worth every bit of the $50. I spent for the up-grade.......!
 


<< Your mobo has to have a 2.0-2.1 Vcore to use it. >>



As Weyland pointed out, not only must the board be able to handle that Vcore, your motherboard must be able to correctly detect the processor or else your performance could be worse than the processor you are upgrading from.

Most SS7 motherboards are old and the manufacturers usually do not release a newer BIOS for such an old motherboard. In my case, I had an Asus P5A, a Soyo (too lazy to go look up model #), and a PC Chips with onboard everything. K6-2+ or K6-3+ would have been good upgrades to these older computers that friends and relatives are using but because those motherboards will not recognize a K6-X+ and the manufacturers have not released a BIOS that will, I can not upgrade them to the + series.
 
Mine is in an old ASUS P/I-P55T2P4 HX chipset mobo and it works perfectly. There is certainly no bios upgrade that recognizes the chip properly. I use a couple of simple free utilities to enable write combining and write allocation, to get by this limitation. Works great. I can only run mine @ 450 (6 x 75) sine the old HX doesn't have 100 MHz FSB, but what the hey. The little thing cranks along @ 450 pretty well.
 
Any advice for a Dell P166 XPS circa Nov. 1996? I think it has the Intel Triton VX chipset and combined with the BIOS Dell (AMI or Award? -can't remember) maxes out at an Intel 200MHz. With a Friendtech/Powerleap CPU adapter an Intel 233MMX is installed but it would be nice to bump it up more. Unfortunately the Triton has a 66MHz bus and the Powerleap only has a 6x multiplier so 400MHz would be the max. It does have ample voltage range though. I have read about a &quot;Mr. BIOS&quot; Mr. Dell XPS BIOS which allows for AMD and perhaps other x86 chips. A version 3.30 from March 1996 is available for download on many sites which has a license fee of $15 but I never found out for sure if that would work and I heard of a newer version that cost something crazy like $50-60.

BTW, that bad boy originally overclocked from 166 to 200. The 233 upgrade from there was a bit dodgy value-wise but without any other alternatives I had to do it. 😛

Maybe I could throw in a cheap mainboard instead and sell the Powerleap adapter to finance that and the CPU instead? I understand the Dell power supply uses non-standard connectors though so that was one of the reasons it was not done before. Anyhoo, it is my mum's machine now and it would be nice to give it some more pep if it does not take too much $ since she won't notice it anyway except when we go head to head with MAME 😀
 
hey Toolman, how do you know the 1.05 revision of the P5A doesn't work at all with a k6-3+?

I'm asking, because I have a P5A, but I do not know the revision # that it is, and I just bought a k6-3+ for it..
 
The K6-3+ 450 should work fine on the FIC PA-2013 board. It has to be at least PCB revision 2.0-2.1. I have rev. 2.1 on the 1MB board I have.

You must also flash the bios with a Beta bios from FIC. It you intend to go the route, head over to Fic's site in Taiwan, not the US. Search for motherboard FAQ specifically on the PA-2013. You will find links to the (Beta) Bioses.

After ensuring that the board in question is indeed PCB rev. 2.0 or 2.1, flash the bios with your existing K6-2 proc. After the flash is successful, remove the K6-2 and replace it with the K6-3+ and power-up.

The cpuid (should) recognize it as a K6-III processor. As with any Beta product, Fic doesn't officially support K6-2+/K6-3+ processors with their VA 503+/PA-2013 systemboards, just the regular K6-2/K6-3, w/c I think blows.
 
You don't need to run it at 2.0v I am running mine at 2.2v because that is the lowest voltage the motherboard supports and it works fine and is cool.
 
ok, I know all that I need, except that toolman has me worried. surely it should run perfectly fine if the Voltage and multiplier are ok, right?

then why would the 1.05 motherboard not work, when the 1.04 does??
 
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