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AMD K7 Slot A

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First post, by Stojke

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Can any one tell me how much do these differ from Pentium III's performance wise?

I bought an 750MHz 512kB cache model [ AMD Athlon 750 - AMD-K7750MTR52B A ].

How well would 2x this processor work in a dual SLOT A board?
I think i saw the 1000MHz models somewhere.

Last edited by Stojke on 2013-07-12, 12:03. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 1 of 19, by F2bnp

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www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K7/TYPE-Athlon%20(Slot%20A).html

These were the first Athlons. Intel still used Slot 1, so AMD thought it was a good idea to take a similar approach. These Athlons range from 500MHz to 1000MHz. Performance is slightly higher than a Pentium III at the same clockspeed AFAIK. Katmai PIII is even slower.
However, the greatest problem lies with the platform itself and the chipsets available at the time. I imagine most server boards that allow dual CPUs will be using a half-decent chipset, but all the rest is hit or miss IMO. AMD's own 750 chipset might be a good bet, unless you're want to use a true AGP card, lots of problems with these apparently.

Reply 3 of 19, by nforce4max

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Slot A boards are getting pretty rare these days like everything else but the only decent chipset for this platform is from AMD and it is pretty decent. There is one problem with this chipset that is gets Hot without any cooling so you will have to add a decent cooler to it and the power vrm on some of these boards is weak but beyond that it is pretty fast for the era. A dual slot A board most likely does not exist or I have yet to see one but AMD's first dip into the SMP market wasn't until the socket a era when Spit Fire and Thunder Bird cores were still all the rage.

On a far away planet reading your posts in the year 10,191.

Reply 4 of 19, by Old Thrashbarg

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but the only decent chipset for this platform is from AMD

I wouldn't say that the 750 was really any better than the KX133 overall... they both have their strengths and weaknesses, and they also both have their own set of annoying quirks.

Reply 6 of 19, by swaaye

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Some of the Slot A boards were crap. They seemed to have been quickly engineered. Some have just bizarre PCB layout with wasted space and such. There are also various revisions of AMD 750 and of course the newest is what you ideally want. KX133 is indeed not much of an improvement. An interesting aspect was that many AMD 750 boards use the VIA 686A chip because the AMD 756 southbridge was rather basic.

I have an ASUS K7M. It is great as long as you stick to 3dfx AGP cards. I tried a few Radeon and GeForce cards and each had different problems. There is something wrong with AGP 2x on AMD 750 so drivers often force AGP 1x, but it doesn't stop instability or even strange artifacts sometimes.

Reply 7 of 19, by Old Thrashbarg

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They seemed to have been quickly engineered. Some have just bizarre PCB layout with wasted space and such.

Very true, and it's not just limited to strange layouts either. I ran into an annoying problem with my K7V when I tried to mount it in a case... it seems to be thinner than other ATX boards. I had to put washers behind the standoffs to space it out from the motherboard tray a little bit, because PCI cards wouldn't seat into the slots otherwise.

Reply 8 of 19, by sprcorreia

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I have around 6-7 Slot A motherboards and perhaps 9 CPU's... I've went with good brands like Asus, Gigabyte, Aopen (at the time it was nice). It makes a nice machine but as said here, 3dfx cards are the way to go.

Reply 10 of 19, by Unknown_K

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Slot-A is what AMD used (I think its just a slot 1 connector flipped or something). Don't think they made a SMP Slot-A board, the Socket A SMP boards used Athlon M CPUs (I have one with dual 2200+ in them). AMD produced their own chipset for the Athlons just to get thinsg moving until the other makers got on board with a design.

It took me a while to snag a Slot-A board , they are not as common as the dirt cheap socket Athlon/Duron boards.

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Reply 12 of 19, by Unknown_K

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Sorry MP. M would be Mobile then?

Anyway it seems whatever AMD sold for SMP/Server use seem to be very stable. The Athlon era MPs and the Opterons I have run very stable on server boards (Socket 940, AM2).

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Reply 13 of 19, by STX

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The first system that I built from new parts had a 650 MHz Athlon CPU on an Abit KA7-100 motherboard (KX133 chipset). That CPU's performance was slightly better than the performance of a 650 MHz Katmai Pentium III. However, that system was not reliable due to the motherboard's capacitor plague.

An Athlon CPU will not work on a Slot 1 motherboard; it will only work on a Slot A motherboard.

Last edited by STX on 2013-09-17, 14:57. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 16 of 19, by swaaye

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Stojke wrote:

I always mix Slot 1 and Slot A 🤣

So it is better performance wise, but the board is an pain to get eh? Kinda hoped it would work in my Dell Optiplex GX 1.

Just need to remember that Athlon uses a FSB called EV6 (aka S2K) that originated with Alpha. Intel and AMD diverged at that point.

Apparently AMD 750 and 760 have even been used for Alpha 21264 boards.

Reply 17 of 19, by sliderider

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Stojke wrote:

I always mix Slot 1 and Slot A 🤣

So it is better performance wise, but the board is an pain to get eh? Kinda hoped it would work in my Dell Optiplex GX 1.

I have two GX1's with Powerleap adapters in them. You have to use the Tualeron chips because the GX1 only recognizes 100mhz fsb. If you try to use Pentium III-S, it will be underclocked and BIOS won't report the speed correctly.

Reply 18 of 19, by Delerium

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sliderider wrote on 2013-07-11, 23:37:

K7 is in between Katmai and Coppermine in raw performance. The weak link, though, is the chipset. Neither AMD nor VIA ever really got it quite right. It wouldn't be until Socket A that Athlon chipsets started to get better.

According to AnandTech the "Athlon is still the faster chip on a clock for clock basis" compared to the Coppermine.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/399

Compared to the Katmai the Athlon is far superior.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/386

Reply 19 of 19, by Cuttoon

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Vanilla slot Athlon and Athlon TB come with the extra prestige bonus of having been the fastest x86 CPUs upon release and, I think, still less expensive than Intel's corresponding flagship CPU.
And most semiconductors were made by Saxons, but let's not hold that against them.

I got a TB (socket A) 700 in 2000 and my parents a slot 800.

Slot A mobos are rare?
I have a f*cked Biostar M7MKE with original printed manual on the heap, maybe it's worth repairing after all?
Wasn't all that great to begin with. A year in an ill-ventilated case with a gf256 and it croaked on us. 😜

I like jumpers.