SETI not made for the k6-3, is it?

[ledzepp98]

is the k6-3 really that bad at seti? i have the text client (version 3.03) set up on my parents computers. on my fathers p3-533 with 128megs pc800 rdram a work unit takes roughly 11 hours. on my mothers computer with a k6-3 450 with 224megs pc100 cas2 ram a work unit takes roughly 20 hours...does this seem right? is there anything substantial that can make the k6-3 faster? if not, why is it so slow?

 

[BurntKooshie]

How much L3 (well, onboard) cache is there? The only things which would make the K6-III substantially faster would be if they included 3dNow! instructions, which they don't, and more cache on-die (L3 cache is nice, but of course, slower than on-die). The K6-X's don't have a pipelined FPU, thus it can't issue an FPU instruction every cycle. I believe that most FPU instructions have a latency of 2 (the more complex, the more cycles it takes, of course), which is phenominally low - which is in part why it didn't scale very well in MHz (I'm astounded it made it as high as it did on a .25 micron process).

 

[ledzepp98]

it has a 2meg L3 cache on the mobo (and obviously the 64k L1 and 256k L2 on-die). and the k6-3 does have the 3dnow! instructions...just not the enhanced 3dnow! that the athlons have, but how does that effect seti? also, i have read about the weak fpu of the k6 cpu's...i guess that has a big effect on seti?

 

[BurntKooshie]

Doh, I suppose I didn't phrase that very well: S@H needs to make use of 3dNow! instructions. It doesn't, which sucks. And yep, FPU represents the majority of the computations done with S@H. (The K6-x FPU doesn't "suck," it went with an entirely different design methedology which simply didn't pan out).

 

[Confused]

K6-X's are really bad at Seti. u should consider running OGR on that for TA, cos they need help staying at the top, and K6-X's are probably the best at OGR

ConfusedBW

 

[Assimilator1]

ledzepp98
You could do a cpu trade ,eg your K6-3 450 running OGR for a PII/III 450 running SETI.

And yep its the poor FPU that makes all the K6's poor at SETI (& games) ,though the K6-3 is the least worst because of its fast on die L2 cache.
20hrs is about right btw.

 

[Fardringle]

Yep, 20 hours sounds right, since my K6-3+ 550 averaged about 18 hours per WU..

 

[Viztech]

Im afraid a processor trade is your best bet. K6s are best used in OGR

viz

 

[ledzepp98]

what do you guys mean by a processor trade? also, what is ogr? i know seti, rc5, and UD, but i don't know the other dc projects.

 

[Assimilator1]

A cpu trade is where (in your case) you would run OGR for a TA member (for an equal number of hrs/day) who owns say a PIII 450 ,in return he would run SETI for you.The K6-3 is better at OGR & the PIII is better at SETI so you would both gain production.
I'll leave the OGR question to someone who knows it better!