Which CPU is runs cooler? K6-3 or K6-2?

[DarkManX]

Im going to be building a computer in the car, and it gets pretty hot in the summer, the computer is going to be a BookPC so not much cooling there, but im probly gonna mod it to add better cooling, I plan to underclock the CPU in the summer months by about 100MHZ, would that help? I currently got a K6-3 but im hopeing to trade it for a K6-2 because the power of the K6-3 wont do much for playing MP3's and GPS navigation. So which CPU would be a better choice?

 

[BurntKooshie]

underclocking would help a ton. You might be able to find someone who wants the K6-III because they are upgrading....its definetly worth more than a K6-2.

For playing mp3's, (don't know about the GPS software) you don't even need a 200mhz machine. I've run mp3's just fine on a 150mhz Cyrix 686.

How low does your voltage go? You should be able to underclock that chip to 166mhz (more than enough for MP3's and nothing else) and at < 2.0 volts (assuming your mobo supports it).

At 400mhz 2.4 volts, the K6-2 is 22 watts, while the K6-III (same voltage and mhz) is 26. If you were to compare two way underclocked versions of each, the difference in watts would diminish (though percentage should stay the same), so it might not be worth the trouble to trade it.

 

[DarkManX]

my mobo would support any socket 7 CPU, but the price of a K6-2 is really cheap, so no reason why I would go with 200MHZ, and since this is going to be in a car the boot time is important. people can play mp3's on a 486 CPU but thats with dos. I just need something that will be fast and cool.

 

[BurntKooshie]

just stick with the K6-III then There's no point in getting anything else, if you underclock, it, and strip the OS of anything uncessesary when booting up, you'll be fine.

What i meant was to underclock to around 200mhz to get the heat down...though for speed, it be best to just go 250 (100 * 2.5 - you can't do the 2x multiplier because it remaps to 6x) because that's still MUCH cooler, and fast enough bootup time if you get rid of most things that start with the OS.

 

[DarkManX]

allright, and in the winter I can try to overclock to 500. LOL. btw I got a K6-3 400MHZ runs at 450 stable.

 

[Sled Dog]

I'm running a AMD k2II 500 in a standup case, no cover. With dcypher running and the room temp about 19*C, it runs about 30*C. If room temp on a warm day hits 28*C the k6 will go to 38*C. Seems to hold a 10* difference. If I kill Gamma Flux, the temp only drops 1*C, so they run pretty hot when only windows is running. You may want to try something that will use the halt command at an idle priority, with this http://atm.idic.caos.it/loweng.html the k6 will drop to nearly room temperature, with no apps running. May help considerabley if you aren't going to work it to hard, ie. Gamma Flux or RC5. If what you are doing requires only 10 or 20% of your proccesor, this will help considerably. The ATM program seems to work well for me, though I never use it (always crunching something..). And it's free. This along with the other suggestions should keep it from smoking..

 

[Peter]

You might want to use a &quot;P&quot; model K6-2 here - they carry the ACK suffix meaning 2.0V 80°C instead of standard AFR 2.2V 70°C. With the lowered supply voltage, power consumption (and thus heat dissipation) are a lot lower.

They are a bit hard to find on retail shelves, though. &quot;P&quot;s are available at up to 500 MHz.

With either standard or &quot;P&quot; model, you'd be able to clock them down to 2.5x multiplier and the lowest FSB speed that your mainboard offers, which usually is 66 MHz nowadays.

Regards, Peter

 

[Sled Dog]

Just a note..
If I'm not mistaken, setting a K6II at the 2.5 multiplier will actually make it run at 6.0x. I got one of those AFR things, and it does 6.0x when set to 2.5. I believe AMD did that so the k6 could be used in the older boards at 6.0x66, making them a little more useful as an upgrade proccesor.

 

[Peter]

SledDog,

not quite - 2.0x was replaced with 6.0x in the K6-2 quite a while ago. 2.5x through 6.0x are available in .5x increments.

The K6-2+ and K6-III+ yet again use a different multiplier mapping. There, the original 2.0x setting still means 6.0x, but the original 2.5x setting was redefined to now mean 2.0x. Meaning that the + models have 2.0, and 3.0 through 6.0x in .5x increments.

Regards, Peter