A 300mhz k6-2 should handle 400mhz fine. Not sure if yours will have a 6x multiplier though

Deksor wrote:

A 300mhz k6-2 should handle 400mhz fine. Not sure if yours will have a 6x multiplier though

Worst case, I could use the 5.5x66MHz and run at 366MHz which is still pretty good, no?

there would be some improvement, but not very significant, probably 30-50% faster, so whether its worthy depends on how much its going to cost.

noshutdown wrote:

there would be some improvement, but not very significant, probably 30-50% faster, so whether its worthy depends on how much its going to cost.

Probably south of $10 is what it will amount to inc. shipping.. Should I? Never had a K6 CPu before, I'm kind of curious about them.

At default clocks, the K6-2 300 won't be much faster than the MMX. If you manage to run it at 366 or even 400, then it will be a nicer boost. Give it a try!

If you ran it at 366 or 400 it would definitely be a noticeable upgrade. Integer performance would be a huge jump over the 233MMX, floating point'd be a little better but not too much. Phil made some good comparisons of the MMX & K6 at 66MHz FSB here. Not mentioned, but the odd title that took advantage of 3DNow would see a healty boost.

I always ran the K6 series back in the day, wouldn't mind to get another one now!

I'll take whatever I can, I suppose. I really want to be able to push 1024x768 30+ FPS in Unreal with the SLI setup and this looks like it will fit the bill at 366. I doubt it has a 6x multiplier, that apparently requires a CXT core and that was only in the 333 and onwards models?

I'm not quite sure if unreal will run at 30+fps on a k6-2

I never thought I'd see the day where somebody mentions it's hard to find a K6-2 🤣, but I guess you meant locally? 😜

For a Voodoo 2 SLI running on a 233 MMX chip, I'd say any speed boost is welcome 😁
I doubt the Voodoo 2 SLI will be maxed by a K6-2/400 though.

I never overclocked K6-2 before (or maybe a few 10's of MHz at the very most), if this particular K6-2/300 is one of the first ones, isn't there a chance it won't make it to 400MHz? That's like a 33% overclock.

appiah4 wrote:

I'll take whatever I can, I suppose. I really want to be able to push 1024x768 30+ FPS in Unreal with the SLI setup and this looks like it will fit the bill at 366. I doubt it has a 6x multiplier, that apparently requires a CXT core and that was only in the 333 and onwards models?

I'd suggest to simply try it? If it doesn't, nothing will get damaged as it should simply use the lower CPU multiplier.

Even K6-2 300 should be faster than Pentium 233MMX, not much but still. They are cheap as dirt so you can always buy one and just try.

Been there, done that. I think that if you're targeting Voodoo 2 SLI levels of performance and games like Unreal, you should probably aim for a more significant upgrade. Even K6-2/400 (about the fastest CPU for Socket 7) will still be bottlenecked and probably won't comfortably run Unreal at high resolutions, so you're bound to make another upgrade sooner or later if this is your "all-in-one" build. I'd aim for a Super Socket 7 with K6-2+/3+ (mobos can be tricky to find, the CPUs are cheap and plentiful on eBay) or a Slot 1 build (even easier/cheaper).

Unreal will not run very smoothly, even with a 400MHz clock. In fact, I don't really consider it smooth even with a K6-III+ 550 and Voodoo3, there's wild fluctuations in the framerate. You might enjoy it though, I have become a little picky about these things over the years.

In my experience, You need to approach 400 Mhz @66FSB for a K6-2 to matter over a 233MMX, or 300Mhz @100FSB. It seems the K6-2 helps most where the MMX is already fast enough, and doesn't help where it needs it most. I know I have benchmarks somewhere when I was comparing my P55C to various K6-2 speeds, using Quake, Descent 2, Duke, and Doom. Just have to dig them up.

Disclosure: my experience is only in DOS. I only run Win9x on Pentium II or higher.

Well... That's a good idea for my next article.

kva wrote:

Well... That's a good idea for my next article.

Who are you responding to?

Why not get a k6-3?
Maybe the k6-3 will not work, if so Id grab the fastest k6-2 and give it ago. It may not run at full clock speed, but you have more head room for overclocking the FSB and if you ever get a newer board you can run it at full speed.

That aside the k6-2 at 300+ MHz will be a upgrade to the mmx. at 350ish + MHz its well worth it as they are cheap.
At 400mhz just shut up and buy one. But keep in mind a mmx at 300mhz is still a good cpu. So if you can OC the mmx give it a try too. If your into overclocking.

EDIT:
To play Unreal on a k6, it can be most certainly done. a strong k6 SSK7 setup with all the right parts can pull it off.
But that's a k6-III+ system with the best of parts. True a k6-2 can play it, but with a voodoo2 sli setup don't expect a smooth 30+ FPS. I had trouble getting MW4 playing on a k6-III+ @ 550mhz with a mx440 and 128mb of pc-133 at 2-2-2 trimmings. Could not even hit 20+ constantly. You really need a Piii to play a game like unreal well.
But it can be done on a k6 . Just not well.

Frankly, I was quite happy playing Unreal on my Celeron 400MHz with PCI TNT2 M64 and my K6-3/400 (non-plus) with Voodoo 2 (non-SLI). I'm not saying framerate was always smooth though, haven't used either rigs for a while now as at this time, both are non-operational (the Celeron's even been disassembled). But playing the campaign and doing a bit of DM with some bots seemed to not be aggravatingly slow...or at least to me. I'm not very picky though. But anyway, it is doable on a 400MHz K6-3

Doable yes, but that last time I had a k6 setup I recall the FPS jumping around a good bit. A high end k6-iii+ setup will play it fine with the right parts and screen resolution. but a k62 will be pushing it.