PARKE wrote on 2020-01-29, 18:20:

If the motherboard chokes at fsb 133 it may or will run that Ebay 800EB at fsb 100 = 600 Mhz and you already have that. Multipli […]
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If the motherboard chokes at fsb 133 it may or will run that Ebay 800EB at fsb 100 = 600 Mhz and you already have that.
Multipliers indicated in manuals are not necessarily the only settings available. I do not know the particulars of your board so I cannot comment on that aspect.

Again, I don't know. Maybe with another 600E it would work ? I saw in a review that your mobo does not have a means to fiddle with voltage which is a handicap for this sort of testing.
Anyway, that 600EB from Ebay will only run @ 800/133 or 600/100 and that is not what you want.

OK that all makes sense - I'll just take the minor boost to 672Mhz and leave it at that.

http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=1603&menustate=0

This link seems to suggest 700Mhz is the maximum so that makes sense. Oh well, performance is not too bad all things considering. Thanks for the help.

It is always a pity to have to give up. But I am not so sure about the maximum 700 Mhz limit. What is the sSpec number on the 600E ?
The manual states this:

Since you've already bought it just try the 800EB at 133MHz FSB. That way you're running the chipset out of spec and you're overclocking the AGP bus to 89MHz but if it runs stable everything is fine.

If you want to play with the CPU speed for various games, you could go for a PIII 1000/133/256k, since your motherboard supports 133 MHz FSB. Of course that the slot version is not very common and can be quite expensive, but you should be able to find the socket 370 version easy and at a low price. I have quite a few of those CPUs, I find them in flea markets at 1 euro/piece and I do buy them when they are in great condition (no bent pins, no cracked die, etc). You need a slot to socket converter, they should be also easy to find and cheap, depending on where you look.

So you can easily have PIII 500, 750 and 1000 with a simple FSB selection. And the best part is that at lowest speed you will also have the lowest FSB and at the highest speed you will have the highest FSB.

Let's not forget that Coppermine 600 work at 1.65V and all late versions work at 1.7V or 1.75V.

3dMark99 is highly CPU dependent and doesn't use any of the features of anything more advanced than an old Nvidia Riva TNT, being Direct X6 features.

On a CPU like the P3-600, you would only see minimal gains, but a more advanced benchmark that stressed the GPU a bit hardware would see a much larger difference.

Doesn't necessarily mean that you would get no benefit from the faster cards, you just won't see it much on Directx 6 games.

Here are some late results from around the same ballpark:

Intel 440ZX - HP Vectra VEi8 (Mitac) OEM board. FSB at 100Mhz.

PIII-800 (Slot1) - V2 SLI - 1024x786x16 TB PIII - 4049 (11959)
PIII-800 (Slot1) - GF2 MX400 - 1024x786x16 TB PIII - 5043 (12032)

PIII-1000 (S370 on Slot1 adapter) - V2 SLI - 1024x786x16 TB PIII - 4085 (14452)
PIII-1000 (S370 on Slot1 adapter) - GF2 MX400 - 1024x786x16 TB PIII - 5481 (14445)

And here are mine:

VIA Apollo 133 (slower than Intel chipsets), ECS P6BAP-Me, 133MHz FSB, GeForce4 MX440
3D Mark 99, default settings, GPU scores only

700 MHz - 5404
933 MHz - 6714

PARKE wrote on 2020-01-30, 01:18:

It is always a pity to have to give up. But I am not so sure about the maximum 700 Mhz limit. What is the sSpec number on the 600E ?
The manual states this:freetech.JPG

SL43E

And nice - the sheet I found stated 700Mhz as the max.

canthearu wrote on 2020-01-30, 13:12:

3dMark99 is highly CPU dependent and doesn't use any of the features of anything more advanced than an old Nvidia Riva TNT, being Direct X6 features.

On a CPU like the P3-600, you would only see minimal gains, but a more advanced benchmark that stressed the GPU a bit hardware would see a much larger difference.

Doesn't necessarily mean that you would get no benefit from the faster cards, you just won't see it much on Directx 6 games.

You know that makes sense - I hadn't considered the fact that 3dmark99 was the limiting factor since I saw results that were way higher. If it's heavily tied to CPU speed, I can see why a better GPU wouldn't make a big difference.

I should try 3D Mark 2001 and see if I get a better result there.

red_avatar wrote on 2020-01-30, 18:57:

PARKE wrote on 2020-01-30, 01:18:

It is always a pity to have to give up. But I am not so sure about the maximum 700 Mhz limit. What is the sSpec number on the 600E ?
The manual states this:freetech.JPG

SL43E

And nice - the sheet I found stated 700Mhz as the max.

Your 600E cpu has CPUID 0683h and the Bios of your motherboard obviously contains the microcode for that stepping.
A relatively safe bet for the sort of modest upgrade you are looking for would be this cpu: Intel Pentium III SL4BZ CPU Processor 750MHz 256KB 100MHz

This is the fastest cpu with that same cB0 stepping, it came out on October 25, 1999.
The 800 Mhz SECC came out on December 20, 1999 and has CPUID 0686h.

PARKE wrote on 2020-01-31, 10:48:

Your 600E cpu has CPUID 0683h and the Bios of your motherboard obviously contains the microcode for that stepping. A relatively […]
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red_avatar wrote on 2020-01-30, 18:57:

PARKE wrote on 2020-01-30, 01:18:

It is always a pity to have to give up. But I am not so sure about the maximum 700 Mhz limit. What is the sSpec number on the 600E ?
The manual states this:freetech.JPG

SL43E

And nice - the sheet I found stated 700Mhz as the max.

Your 600E cpu has CPUID 0683h and the Bios of your motherboard obviously contains the microcode for that stepping.
A relatively safe bet for the sort of modest upgrade you are looking for would be this cpu: Intel Pentium III SL4BZ CPU Processor 750MHz 256KB 100MHz

This is the fastest cpu with that same cB0 stepping, it came out on October 25, 1999.
The 800 Mhz SECC came out on December 20, 1999 and has CPUID 0686h.

If the 800 doesn't work, I'll certainly consider it. I've been testing more modern games (1999-2002 like Q3A, Imperium Galactica, Freespace 2, etc.) and oddly enough, they seem to be performing better than some older ones. Go figure ... I assume the problem lies with D3D being rather iffy in the late 90's.

bit of a necro - but just in case someone comes across this and find it useful:

1999 Dell GX1 sff
145W PSU
P3 600e
100 mhz fsb
256mb 100 mhz ram
ATI all-in-wonder 128GL PCI 16mb running at 95 mhz (stock is 90 mhz but bumped it a bit with Powerstrip).

3DMark 99 Max Pro at 800x600x16 = 4484 3DMarks and 9454 CPU 3DMarks.