PII 266 vs. PII350

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: glugglug

Originally posted by: Regs
P3's were much better performers than the P2's.

No, they weren't. The only difference between the cores of a PIII and a PII is SSE instructions, and since the PIII came later, they ramped it to higher clock speeds.

Yep.

Originally posted by: glugglug
In fact, in order to have this higher clock capability, the original PIIIs came with the cache running at 1/3 the CPU clock, while PIIs ran it at half the CPU clock, AND the L2 on a PIII had additional latency, so at the same clock speed, a PII is faster than a PIII.

True, actually, for the early PIIIs that also utilized the seperate L2 cache chips. An oft-overlooked subtle performance point difference between otherwise identically-clocked PII and PIII chips.

Originally posted by: glugglug
As someone mentioned above, the 350 is made for 3.5 * 100MHz bus, the 266 is 4 * 66MHz.

If your motherboard is an FX or LX, it probably doesn't support bus speeds above 66MHz, and the 350MHz chip will be underclocked to 233MHz on the board.

That's not necessarily true, the 350Mhz PIIs were kind of unique chips, they were bi-compatible. Assuming that the mobo in question supports setting the multiplier, then the 350Mhz PIIs would "unlock" higher multipliers, when run on a 66Mhz FSB rather than 100Mhz. They were only partially clock-locked, and were the last CPUs that Intel made that were like that. All of their later PII 400Mhz and up chips were fully multiplier-locked.

Anyways, it should be possible to run that chip on a 66Mhz FSB just fine, if at 333Mhz speeds. Might get lucky, maybe it would run at 400Mhz even.

If the machine in question is actually being used by a human, then I would probably upgrade. For only $5, the minimal time saves doing tasks on the computer could well be worth it in the long run. If the computer is only running non-interactive tasks like running as a router/firewall, then I wouldn't really bother.

One other consideration, DVD playback requires a PII 300MHz or faster CPU. A 350Mhz PII would be able to handle it, whereas a PII 266 most likely would not, without occasional frameskip. Combined with a video card with TV-out, it could make a nice little dedicated DVD-playback machine.

If nothing else, a spare Slot-1 CPU makes a nifty technological paperweight.

Edit: Oh yeah, word of wisdom - if you ever see an "SL2W8" S-Spec Slot-1 PII 300Mhz CPU, pick it up. Those are 99% guaranteed to overclock to 450Mhz, and a 450Mhz PII with 512MB of L2 cache, is actually still surprisingly snappy even today, for running most "ordinary" Windows tasks, and can even do DVD playback without breathing hard.

 

[OCNewbie]

Originally posted by: Cawchy87
How much faster is the 350?

Approximately 84 MEGHAHURTz

 

[Oreo]

Alot of missinformation in this thread. First of all a the first generation PIII's where not at all faster than the PII's except for the SSE instructions. Since SSE isn't used in that many applications (mainly video and image editing) it doesn't matter too much for everyday use. Second of all a Duron has nothing in common with the Celeron except that they both are valueprocessors. The Duron has always been a very competitive CPU and hasn't had the flaws that has plagued some of the Celeron models.

To answer the question, yea, you should notice a certain speed increase since its running 31% faster and on a 50% higher busspeed.