Got some questions regarding this. In games, how much difference, if any are there on for example a Intel Pentium 166mhz MMX CPU vs a non-MMX 166mhz one? I know there will be a performance increase in programs specifically made with MMX in mind, but how much is this in practice? Any difference on non-mmx programs?
The real gain comes from the MMX CPUs having twice the cache. Where as the non-MMX Pentiums had 16kb of L1 cache, the MMX Pentiums have 32kb of L1 Cache!
So, in a practice, a Pentium MMX 166 is the equivalent of a Pentium 200 AFAIK.
You can still find some benches online from the period that showed the differences performance wise between the two. The MMX model was like 10% faster per clock due to the extra cache but beyond that it was the same. The MMX model runs cooler and uses less power.
On a far away planet reading your posts in the year 10,191.
