First post, by SSTV2
- Rank
- Oldbie
I have long wanted to know how a heavily tweaked Pentium MMX system, from the year of 1997, would compare to Pentium II systems of the time. I recently had the opportunity to build one such Pentium MMX PC, tweak and test it 😀
Specs of the Pentium MMX system:
MB - ASUS VX97 w/buck converter, i430VX, 512KB L2;
CPU - Pentium MMX 233@292MHz / AMD K6-2 500MHz @83.3MHz FSB;
RAM - 64MB EDO;
*RAM TIMINGS: DRAM Read/Write Burst Timing x222, RAS to CAS 3T, RAS Precharge 3T;
Video - EvilKing Voodoo 3 PCI @167MHz;
Sound - SB AWE64 Gold;
BIOS - Modernized Award BIOS.
Specs of the PII system:
MB - ACER V66XA, i440BX;
CPU - Pentium II Klamath 266MHz / Pentium III Katmai 600MHz;
RAM - 256MB SDRAM;
*RAM TIMINGS @ 100MHz FSB: CAS 3T, RAS to CAS 2T, RAS Precharge 2T;
*RAM TIMINGS @ 66MHz FSB: CAS 2T, RAS to CAS 2T, RAS Precharge 2T;
Video - Voodoo 3 2000 PCI @167MHz;
Sound - Integrated Crystal CS4235;
BIOS - ACER V3.2 /w Katmai CPU uCode.
I decided to do the comparison by benchmarking only Unreal, because the performance of this game heavily depends on the CPU and the bandwidth of the system bus. The given frame rate average and min/max will allow us to directly compare CPUs of different generations and manufacturers.
Testing conditions and environment on both systems:
Win98SE, sound drivers disabled, video driver V1.07.00, USB - Enabled, Unreal ver. 226, GameRenderDevice - 3dfx Glide, default Glide Rendering settings, 640x480 resolution, texture detail - High, monsters disabled at intro Castle Flyby for frame rate consistency, results are collected after 2nd cycle and rounded to its nearest tenth.
*** PII system results:
PII KLAMATH @133MHz
avg 23.6
min 8.6
max 51.4
---
PII KLAMATH @166 MHz
avg 29.2
min 10.9
max 64.9
---
PII KLAMATH @200MHz
avg 34.7
min 12.9
max 76.5
---
PII KLAMATH @233MHz
avg 39.5
min 13.3
max 85.3
---
PII KLAMATH @266MHz
avg 44.2
min 16.2
max 95.2
---
PII KLAMATH @300 MHz, @66MHZ FSB, CL2-3-3
avg 47.6
min 18.1
max 102.4
---
PII KLAMATH @300 MHz, @66MHZ FSB
avg 48.4
min 18.3
max 104.9
---
PII KLAMATH @300MHz, @75MHZ FSB
avg 49.8
min 18.2
max 105.5
---
PII KLAMATH @333MHz, @83.3MHZ FSB
avg 55.5
min 20.8
max 116.6
---
PII DESCHUTES @350 MHz
avg 60.4
min 22.9
max 124.8
---
PII KLAMATH @263MHz, @75MHZ FSB
avg 44.3
min 16.7
max 93.9
---
PII KLAMATH @292MHz, @83.3MHZ FSB
avg 48.9
min 18.2
max 105.1
---
Celeron COVINGTON @233 MHz, CL2-3-3
avg 32.2
min 11.3
max 65.1
---
Celeron COVINGTON @233 MHz
avg 33.3
min 11.7
max 71.9
---
Celeron COVINGTON @266 MHz, CL2-3-3
avg 34.6
min 12.8
max 73.6
---
Celeron COVINGTON @266 MHz
avg 36.2
min 12.8
max 75.8
---
Celeron COVINGTON @300 MHz, @66MHZ FSB, CL2-3-3
avg 36.8
min 13.2
max 75.8
---
Celeron COVINGTON @300 MHz, @66MHZ FSB
avg 38.4
min 13.3
max 79.9
---
Celeron COVINGTON @333 MHz
avg 40.8
min 14.4
max 84.3
---
Celeron COVINGTON @350 MHz, @100MHZ FSB
avg 49.0
min 18.4
max 100.6
---
Celeron COVINGTON @400 MHz, @100MHZ FSB
avg 52.8
min 19.4
max 108.8
---
Celeron COVINGTON @448 MHz, @112MHZ FSB, CL3-2-2
avg 59.4
min 21.8
max 122.0
---
Celeron MENDOCINO @333 MHz
avg 54.1
min 20.1
max 109.9
---
Celeron MENDOCINO @375MHz, @75MHZ FSB
avg 60.0
min 23.0
max 122.7
---
Celeron MENDOCINO @417MHz, @83.3MHZ FSB
avg 66.4
min 25.5
max 138.2
---
Celeron MENDOCINO @400MHz, @66MHz FSB
avg 60.9
min 24.5
max 125.7
---
Celeron MENDOCINO 450MHz, @75MHz FSB
avg 68.5
min 26.7
max 139.1
---
Celeron MENDOCINO 500MHz, @83.3MHz FSB
avg 76.0
min 28.8
max 158.0
---
Celeron MENDOCINO 600MHz, @100MHz FSB
avg 87.1
min 34.6
max 176.4
---
PIII KATMAI @600MHz
avg 85.6
min 32.3
max 184.4
---
*** Pentium MMX system results:
AMD K5 PR166 @116MHz, RAS to CAS - 2T
avg 18.6
min 6.4
max 42.2
---
Pentium MMX @233MHz, RAS to CAS - 2T
avg 29.3
min 10.5
max 63.0
---
Pentium MMX @292MHz
avg 36.1
min 12.9
max 75.9
---
AMD K6-2 @500MHz, WRITE ALLOCATION ENABLED
avg 46.9
min 18.3
max 99.6
---
Conclusions:
Now we can see that a nearly maxed out Pentium MMX PC back in 1997 would deliver us just a slightly higher average performance than that of a PII Klamath clocked at 200MHz and a future upgrade to a 500MHz K6-2 CPU would guarantee a slightly higher performance than that of a PII Klamath clocked at 266MHz.