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3Dfx Voodoo 2 8MB - which S7 CPU?

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First post, by winuser_pl

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Hi, last time i've bought a highscreen socket 7 computer - very good condition.
It has FIC PA-2005 motherboard (no AGP). I have Voodoo 2 3d accelerator and I'm wondering which CPU will best utilize the performance of Voodoo 2?
I see that the motherboard can handle up to 66 MHz FSB, so I'm limited to AMD K6 200 MHz or Pentium 200 MMX (which i own).
Also I have Cyrix 6x86 PR166.

Thanks.

PC1: Highscreen => FIC PA-2005, 64 MB EDO RAM, Pentium MMX 200, S3 Virge + Voodoo 2 8 MB
PC2: AOpen => GA-586SG, 512 MB SDRAM, AMD K6-2 400 MHz, Geforce 2 MX 400

Reply 1 of 23, by ph4nt0m

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You want an IDT WinChip 2, 200 to 240MHz, to take advantage of 3DNow!

Otherwise you can mod the CPU power supply to add support for lower voltages and try a K6-2.

BTW only early revisions of FIC PA-2005 supported the 66MHz FSB max. Most could do 75MHz as well.

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Reply 2 of 23, by BinaryDemon

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Since you already have a Pentium 200 MMX, I'd go with that.

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Reply 3 of 23, by winuser_pl

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Thank you for your replies.

BTW only early revisions of FIC PA-2005 supported the 66MHz FSB max. Most could do 75MHz as well.

Unfortunately it seems that mine is an early revision. I've seen in the manual that there is a small jumper located on the mobo and if it is set to 1-2 then only 66 is available and 2-3 means that 75 is also available. Mine is shortened at 1-2 pins. No option to change 🙁

I think I will stick with Pentium MMX 200, but i will also give a try AMD K6 200. I want to run some benchmarks, will post the results here later.

EDIT: Guys, do you think SLI setup of two Voodoo 2 will be an overkill for this machine? I tried to play some games like Screamer 4x4 using glide and it is a horrible experience... Very slow plus some textures were missing 🙁

PC1: Highscreen => FIC PA-2005, 64 MB EDO RAM, Pentium MMX 200, S3 Virge + Voodoo 2 8 MB
PC2: AOpen => GA-586SG, 512 MB SDRAM, AMD K6-2 400 MHz, Geforce 2 MX 400

Reply 5 of 23, by winuser_pl

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Thank you for this link. Now I see that I need some serious computing power in order to utilise two Voodoo 2 cards. I will stick with one. They are quite expensive nowadays as well...

PC1: Highscreen => FIC PA-2005, 64 MB EDO RAM, Pentium MMX 200, S3 Virge + Voodoo 2 8 MB
PC2: AOpen => GA-586SG, 512 MB SDRAM, AMD K6-2 400 MHz, Geforce 2 MX 400

Reply 6 of 23, by ph4nt0m

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winuser_pl wrote:

Thank you for your replies.

BTW only early revisions of FIC PA-2005 supported the 66MHz FSB max. Most could do 75MHz as well.

Unfortunately it seems that mine is an early revision. I've seen in the manual that there is a small jumper located on the mobo and if it is set to 1-2 then only 66 is available and 2-3 means that 75 is also available. Mine is shortened at 1-2 pins. No option to change 🙁

Who cares. Take a soldering iron, pull that thing and install a jumper there.

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Reply 7 of 23, by winuser_pl

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Meh, I don't want to corrupt the board. 😒

PC1: Highscreen => FIC PA-2005, 64 MB EDO RAM, Pentium MMX 200, S3 Virge + Voodoo 2 8 MB
PC2: AOpen => GA-586SG, 512 MB SDRAM, AMD K6-2 400 MHz, Geforce 2 MX 400

Reply 8 of 23, by ph4nt0m

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winuser_pl wrote:

Meh, I don't want to corrupt the board. 😒

You don't corrupt it. You enhance it 😀

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Reply 9 of 23, by winuser_pl

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Have you done this before?

PC1: Highscreen => FIC PA-2005, 64 MB EDO RAM, Pentium MMX 200, S3 Virge + Voodoo 2 8 MB
PC2: AOpen => GA-586SG, 512 MB SDRAM, AMD K6-2 400 MHz, Geforce 2 MX 400

Reply 10 of 23, by ph4nt0m

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Sure, on many mainboards. A jumper instead of a hard-wired connection doesn't hurt. Even if the mainboard seems unstable at 75MHz, you can still set the jumper to 66MHz.

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Reply 11 of 23, by meljor

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If you have an older (unlocked) mmx cpu you can try the 1,5x multiplier, it will then act as 3,5x to clock it at 233mhz. Later ones were locked, can't hurt to try.

asus tx97-e, 233mmx, voodoo1, s3 virge ,sb16
asus p5a, k6-3+ @ 550mhz, voodoo2 12mb sli, gf2 gts, awe32
asus p3b-f, p3-700, voodoo3 3500TV agp, awe64
asus tusl2-c, p3-S 1,4ghz, voodoo5 5500, live!
asus a7n8x DL, barton cpu, 6800ultra, Voodoo3 pci, audigy1

Reply 12 of 23, by RaverX

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winuser_pl wrote:

EDIT: Guys, do you think SLI setup of two Voodoo 2 will be an overkill for this machine? I tried to play some games like Screamer 4x4 using glide and it is a horrible experience... Very slow plus some textures were missing 🙁

Even a single V2 is overkill for P200MMX. PII 400 is a perfect match for V2 (imho). But V2 SLI is not a bad choice if you want 1024x768, even if the CPU is underpowered.
Screamer 4x4 is a game released in the (very) late 2000, of course it won't run good on V2. If you want to play games from 2000 and later you need something from that period.

If you want to use 3dfx go for V5 5500 or at least V3 3000. A Geforce2 (GTS, Ti or Ultra, not the crappy MX) or GF3/GF4 Ti would be a much better choice for Screamer 4x4. And, of course, a good CPU. Athlon 1000+ or PIII 1000+ should be a good choice if you go for V5 5500 (or V3 3000), Athlon XP or P4 Northwood for GF2/3/4.

Reply 13 of 23, by leileilol

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ph4nt0m wrote:

You want an IDT WinChip 2, 200 to 240MHz, to take advantage of 3DNow!

- Poor IPC compared to Pentium MMX.
- Not all feature 3DNow
- Pretty much the P4 of Socket7 CPUs

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Reply 14 of 23, by winuser_pl

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Thanks. I will stick with Voodoo 2 on this computer. Also I plan to put 233 MMX in it.

PC1: Highscreen => FIC PA-2005, 64 MB EDO RAM, Pentium MMX 200, S3 Virge + Voodoo 2 8 MB
PC2: AOpen => GA-586SG, 512 MB SDRAM, AMD K6-2 400 MHz, Geforce 2 MX 400

Reply 15 of 23, by ph4nt0m

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leileilol wrote:
- Poor IPC compared to Pentium MMX. - Not all feature 3DNow - Pretty much the P4 of Socket7 CPUs […]
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ph4nt0m wrote:

You want an IDT WinChip 2, 200 to 240MHz, to take advantage of 3DNow!

- Poor IPC compared to Pentium MMX.
- Not all feature 3DNow
- Pretty much the P4 of Socket7 CPUs

WinChips are very much 486 class processors with large write back caches and TLBs. No superscalar core, no out-of-order execution, no branch prediction, no load/store reordering. However Pentium MMX wasn't the most advanced chip back in the day either.

All WinChips 2 support the 3DNow! instructions. They have two MMX execution units, two 3DNow! units and a pipelined FPU. Performance is generally comparable to AMD K6-2.

WinChip and P4 have nothing in common except the instruction set. The architectures are entirely different. WinChip was an inexpensive and energy efficient processor which could be a success like AMD 5x86 if IDT didn't suck at marketing.

If someone wants the best integer performance with such a mainboard, then a Cyrix 6x86MII-PR366 is the way to go. 4x66 = 266MHz and it's unbeatable. However the topic starter wants to play 3D games, so the pipelined FPU and two 3DNow! units of WinChip 2 are preferred.

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Reply 16 of 23, by winuser_pl

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If someone wants the best integer performance with such a mainboard, then a Cyrix 6x86MII-PR366 is the way to go. 4x66 = 266MHz and it's unbeatable.

Are you sure? Even K6-II 450 MHz would be beaten? I can't believe 😵

PC1: Highscreen => FIC PA-2005, 64 MB EDO RAM, Pentium MMX 200, S3 Virge + Voodoo 2 8 MB
PC2: AOpen => GA-586SG, 512 MB SDRAM, AMD K6-2 400 MHz, Geforce 2 MX 400

Reply 17 of 23, by ph4nt0m

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winuser_pl wrote:

If someone wants the best integer performance with such a mainboard, then a Cyrix 6x86MII-PR366 is the way to go. 4x66 = 266MHz and it's unbeatable.

Are you sure? Even K6-II 450 MHz would be beaten? I can't believe 😵

First, your board doesn't support 2.2V. The fastest K6 at 3.2V was 233MHz consuming 30W. Second, 6x66=400MHz is the highest possible. Besides K6-2 sucks at 6x.

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Reply 18 of 23, by Jasin Natael

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I could be wrong, but I think if the board will support 2.8v, a K6/2 with a 6x multi would be the best option.....I don't have much experience with the Cyrix stuff though.

Even less with IDT chips.

I used to have a Aopen AP53 than I ran a K6/2 at 400mhz with a 66FSB and 6X multi. It did fairly well to be honest.

Reply 19 of 23, by havli

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Cyrix really isn't that great performance-wise... and runs rather hot too. Looking at my test results MII @ 3*83=250 MHz is just barely faster than P233 MMX and same like K6-2 233. MII @ 3*100=300 MHz beats K6-2 300 (66 MHz FSB) by 4% and loses to Pentium Pro 200/256 😈

As for the power consumption - K6-2 300 uses around 20W and MII 300 is 40W.

K6-2 will work at 6x66=400 and definitely will perform better than any Cyrix. 2.8V is quite an overvolt for K6-2 but it will survive with proper cooling.

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