Imperious wrote on 2022-02-14, 10:54:

OK Yes this is total cheating, but I bet a few were wondering.
Motherboard is Epox EP-MVP3G5.

I think it's still fair game. Thanks for the tests, they paint a nice picture on what's going on here. I presume 3x100 was unstable eh?

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-02-14, 11:31:

Garrett W wrote on 2022-02-11, 21:22:

Considering this PCI variant of the AGP8x version of MX440 probably came out rather late, I don't think I can really go much farther back when it comes to using older drivers, 43.45 are already from early 2003.

I use 40.72 WHQL drivers on my AGP8x MX440 and they work just fine.

This is with an actual AGP card mind you, so I'm not sure if it applies to your PCI version as well. Might still be worth trying it out.

Apparently I could go one step further back with 40.71. Tempting to give it a try and perhaps even earlier drivers, attempting to force vanilla MX440 drivers, but I just can't justify the time I'll have to spend 😜.

Garrett W wrote on 2022-02-14, 12:21:

I think it's still fair game. Thanks for the tests, they paint a nice picture on what's going on here. I presume 3x100 was unsta […]
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Imperious wrote on 2022-02-14, 10:54:

OK Yes this is total cheating, but I bet a few were wondering.
Motherboard is Epox EP-MVP3G5.

I think it's still fair game. Thanks for the tests, they paint a nice picture on what's going on here. I presume 3x100 was unstable eh?

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-02-14, 11:31:

Garrett W wrote on 2022-02-11, 21:22:

Considering this PCI variant of the AGP8x version of MX440 probably came out rather late, I don't think I can really go much farther back when it comes to using older drivers, 43.45 are already from early 2003.

I use 40.72 WHQL drivers on my AGP8x MX440 and they work just fine.

This is with an actual AGP card mind you, so I'm not sure if it applies to your PCI version as well. Might still be worth trying it out.

Apparently I could go one step further back with 40.71. Tempting to give it a try and perhaps even earlier drivers, attempting to force vanilla MX440 drivers, but I just can't justify the time I'll have to spend 😜.

I never tried 3x100 and that was because 83x3.5 (292) gave blue screens before even getting to the desktop. I didn't want to try 3v.
I only have one P233mmx which I got with a nice AT Intel TX board cheap from ebay last week. I'll give a that a go next.

Imperious wrote on 2022-02-14, 12:31:

I never tried 3x100 and that was because 83x3.5 (292) gave blue screens before even getting to the desktop. I didn't want to try 3v.

You can try 3.0/3.1V without any issues, just make sure you have a more robust heatsink/fan (a small to medium sized socket 370 cooler should be fine).
I only have one Pentium MMX which is stable @ 300 MHz with only 2.9V, the others all need 3.0/3.1 for 100% stability.

Agreed with Bloodem, it should be safe to do so, especially for something short such as some benchmarking. Your call obviously, happy that you decided to join in the first place!

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-01-30, 02:17:

It's a battle between driver overhead crippling the card from feeding the GPU fast enough and the actual capability of the GPU architecture...

Spoiler

Fastest AGP video card for Super socket 7 platform?

If you're going to talk about drivers, know that sometimes driver code would make a card faster than it would be on its own, by doing things like batching calls together. Really anyone who wants to talk about 90's/2000's graphics drivers should read this: http://www.azillionmonkeys.com/qed/accelerator.html

bloodem wrote on 2022-02-14, 12:41:

Imperious wrote on 2022-02-14, 12:31:

I never tried 3x100 and that was because 83x3.5 (292) gave blue screens before even getting to the desktop. I didn't want to try 3v.

You can try 3.0/3.1V without any issues, just make sure you have a more robust heatsink/fan (a small to medium sized socket 370 cooler should be fine).
I only have one Pentium MMX which is stable @ 300 MHz with only 2.9V, the others all need 3.0/3.1 for 100% stability.

OK I tried 300mhz, and still got blue screens and lockups with 3v and 3.1v. I have 3 other P200 mmx chips. Maybe at a later time but for now 285mhz will do.
I have a decent heatsink but I think this particular chip won't do 300mhz.

It's a shame this motherboard cannot post at over 100mhz fsb with the L2 Cache on because fsb makes a huge difference. The 250mhz with 100fsb is not far off the 285mhz with 95fsb.

Imperious wrote on 2022-02-15, 08:32:

It's a shame this motherboard cannot post at over 100mhz fsb with the L2 Cache on because fsb makes a huge difference. The 250mhz with 100fsb is not far off the 285mhz with 95fsb.

What gpu?

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-02-15, 13:50:

Imperious wrote on 2022-02-15, 08:32:

It's a shame this motherboard cannot post at over 100mhz fsb with the L2 Cache on because fsb makes a huge difference. The 250mhz with 100fsb is not far off the 285mhz with 95fsb.

What gpu?

GF3 Ti200

Imperious wrote on 2022-02-16, 00:12:

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-02-15, 13:50:

Imperious wrote on 2022-02-15, 08:32:

It's a shame this motherboard cannot post at over 100mhz fsb with the L2 Cache on because fsb makes a huge difference. The 250mhz with 100fsb is not far off the 285mhz with 95fsb.

What gpu?

GF3 Ti200

Sweet! I think you have the thread record!

I was wondering if gf2/3 was gonna be the leader like it is in the k6 thread. Looks like it may be.

Imperious wrote on 2022-02-15, 08:32:

It's a shame this motherboard cannot post at over 100mhz fsb with the L2 Cache on because fsb makes a huge difference. The 250mhz with 100fsb is not far off the 285mhz with 95fsb.

Oh nice! I wonder what a voodoo 2 sli setup would do on that cpu speed! Since your gf3 still got beaten at the 233mhz standard clock due to driver overhead. 🤔

Aebtdom wrote on 2022-02-16, 04:27:

Imperious wrote on 2022-02-15, 08:32:

It's a shame this motherboard cannot post at over 100mhz fsb with the L2 Cache on because fsb makes a huge difference. The 250mhz with 100fsb is not far off the 285mhz with 95fsb.

Oh nice! I wonder what a voodoo 2 sli setup would do on that cpu speed! Since your gf3 still got beaten at the 233mhz standard clock due to driver overhead. 🤔

I could actually give that a try. I got 2 of those new old stock 12mb voodoo2's from Russia a few Years back when You could buy them for $60 or so. I would have to make a SLI cable though.
Maybe in a month or so as I have other things to do in the meantime.
I was using driver 12.xx. I did use 7.xx for the K6 benchmarking so would be interesting if I got higher numbers.

Well you could first try 800x600 on a single 12mb card. I dont even think one card is a bottleneck with this cpu.

Imperious wrote on 2022-02-15, 07:54:

bloodem wrote on 2022-02-14, 12:41:

Imperious wrote on 2022-02-14, 12:31:

I never tried 3x100 and that was because 83x3.5 (292) gave blue screens before even getting to the desktop. I didn't want to try 3v.

You can try 3.0/3.1V without any issues, just make sure you have a more robust heatsink/fan (a small to medium sized socket 370 cooler should be fine).
I only have one Pentium MMX which is stable @ 300 MHz with only 2.9V, the others all need 3.0/3.1 for 100% stability.

OK I tried 300mhz, and still got blue screens and lockups with 3v and 3.1v. I have 3 other P200 mmx chips. Maybe at a later time but for now 285mhz will do.
I have a decent heatsink but I think this particular chip won't do 300mhz.

Mmx cpu's can do 3,3v no problem, lots of guys upgraded older non mmx boards with mmx cpu's and used them at 3,3v. To be extra safe you can use a good cooler but otherwise they will do fine.

meljor wrote on 2022-02-16, 19:31:

Mmx cpu's can do 3,3v no problem, lots of guys upgraded older non mmx boards with mmx cpu's and used them at 3,3v. To be extra safe you can use a good cooler but otherwise they will do fine.

I used to be doubtful about that, but maybe I was thinking Vmax was 3.3V, recently taking note that it's 3.8V means I'm no longer concerned. However, you do wanna make sure you're not running 3.5 or 3.6V with an I/O voltage boost setting, because if the "3.3" goes up to that, as some motherboards are set up (They've only got the one regulator maybe, how do you think they're gonna get 3.3 and 3.6 out of it?) then maybe that would tend to burn out the CPU in a few months.

I have all the non documented voltage settings for this Epox motherboard. There is no chance of ever hitting over 3.3v as it won't do 3.4v or 3.5v no matter what I do with the switch block.
I'll have another try with the MMX with higher voltage and see what the Voodoo2 can achieve.

Imperious wrote on 2022-02-17, 00:16:

There is no chance of ever hitting over 3.3v

Sometimes switching the switch block with power on will give 5v core. I encountered that on a Kingston power leap once while documenting settings 🤣

I've re-run most of my previous benchmarks with 7.58 driver, it's a fair bit faster. I tried 3.2v with the cpu at 300mhz, still blue screens. I'm not wasting any more time with this cpu aiming for 300mhz. I might put my 200mmx in at a later date. Also I have a Tillamook cpu that may work with this motherboard if I do the cpu mod.

Imperious wrote on 2022-02-17, 13:01:

I've re-run most of my previous benchmarks with 7.58 driver, it's a fair bit faster. I tried 3.2v with the cpu at 300mhz, still blue screens. I'm not wasting any more time with this cpu aiming for 300mhz. I might put my 200mmx in at a later date. Also I have a Tillamook cpu that may work with this motherboard if I do the cpu mod.
For some reason the 233mhz screenshot is corrupted. The score was 1340

the score was corrupted in the screenshot? weird..

can you upload the driver you are using in a zip please I'm having trouble finding a working version that has a working download link

Would benches with dual CPUs be ok?