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Nice, thought I was the only nutter who messed with VIA CPU's 😀

Never knew s370 boards with 6(!) ISA slots existed, looking forward to your build progressing 😀

Nice looking build. That's a big hear sink for a cpu that can be passively cool, will you over clock it?

@BSA Starfire: Yeah, I often like to take the beaten path, looking for that diamond in the rough...

@Tetrium: I came across this board by chance - I was looking for SB-Link headers, not ISA slots. Considering that header, it's like having 6 1/2 ISA slots...

@Jade Falcon: Voltage control on this board is not easy, so I'll keep stock voltage of 1.4v and overclock around that. It does 1200 Mhz easily, and at 150Mhz FSB. I have a Slot 1 build with a Slotket that has variable voltage jumpers, so that build would be better for overclocking. In my previous tests, this CPU is stable at 1300Mhz, and 1400Mhz if you don't use 3DNow!

Some quick benches with Speedsys - just used multi and FSB (all Setmul switches enabled, all caches enabled):

These benches give a range from the slowest to the fastest by just using FSB via BIOS, and Setmul to change multi. Other speeds are smoothly attainable between these ranges by just using the aforementioned parameters.

In conjunction with ICD (Instruction Cache Disable), and BPD (Branch Prediction Disable), far more flexibility is possible, with a range from 286 to a Pentium II. I'll post these benches later...

Sweet. I never knew anything about the VIA cpus back in the day. Now that it's retro, there's definitely greater appreciation for the processor than I would have had when it was new. Looking forward to seeing your progress.

@clueless1: Yeah, definitely more appreciation in retrospect. I'd have to add that the discovery of VIA C3s having unlocked multipliers definitely helped, especially with SetMul maintained by Gerwin.

Some more benches, getting slower and slower in obtaining them:

So, following on from the last Speedsys score of around 105, we are now at 88. I just used BPD.

Now dropping down to 64 in Speedsys; using ICD, and full speed.

Hitting 54 in Speedsys; dropped multi to 3x.

Approaching AMDs classic 5x86-133, with a Speedsys score of around 43... Changed FSB to 100Mhz.

Somewhere near a 100Mhz 486; score of around 36 in Speedsys. How deep does the rabbit hole go? To be continued...

That is an interesting setup, especially the motherboard and Ezra-T CPU/ I will follow with interest! My current favorite retro system is also a VIA CPU on a i440BX motherboard.

PS: Would it be possible to save the speedsys screenshots using the .pcx export of speedsys itself, then post them here converted to .png?

The unique advantage of C3 is the possibility to have universal machine for DOS and Win9x. Faster C3 are more interesting for this. For example, on stock 1200 MHz Nehemiah gives 800 points in speedsys.

gerwin wrote:

That is an interesting setup, especially the motherboard and Ezra-T CPU/ I will follow with interest! My current favorite retro system is also a VIA CPU on a i440BX motherboard.

Are you using 50MHz FSB boards? They are great for slowing down, too. The slower FSB can be used to scale even more smoothly, and also gives a lower bottom-end.

gerwin wrote:

PS: Would it be possible to save the speedsys screenshots using the .pcx export of speedsys itself, then post them here converted to .png?

No probs - this avoids overexposed phone pics with glaring sunlight!

Tertz wrote:

The unique advantage of C3 is the possibility to have universal machine for DOS and Win9x. Faster C3 are more interesting for this. For example, on stock 1200 MHz Nehemiah gives 800 points in speedsys.

This board also runs Nehemiah (only tried 1.45v models), and it is faster clock-for-clock:

The above is at full speed, and is around 170 pts higher in Speedsys compared to the Ezra-T (801 vs 632). The Nehemiah also has a slower bottom-end when disabling all caches, BPD etc., but it doesn't scale as smoothly; it has a large gap from around 15 pts - 130 pts in Speedsys (around the range of 486-33 to PI-133). It would still make a good all-round machine.

Some more Speedsys tests using the Ezra-T - I last left this at around a 486-100 MHz level, scoring 36pts. The following is with L1 disabled (no L2 for Ezra):

This is the fastest I can run the board with L1 cache disabled.

Some more:

We're now somehere in the region of the classic 486DX2-66...
And:

The above is the slowest (~ 22pts) I can run this board with L1 cache still enabled. I used both ICD and BPD with the slowest multi (3) and FSB (66Mhz).

More to follow... (I can only upload 5 pics per post...)

Continuing from above:

Around these speeds, it is taking too long to run the memory profile tests in Speedsys, so I've skipped most of them. The speeds below 30pts can be achieved in multiple ways because there are many parameters that can be adjusted...

More to follow...

Continued from above:

More to follow...

Continued...

This is the slowest I can achieve in Speedsys - 9.46pts, using the slowest timings in the BIOS. Around these speeds, the accuracy reported by Speedsys can have discrepancies. It is reporting a fast 386DX currently. I normally cross-reference other benchmarks to get an idea on where the CPU is at. For example, Topbench is reporting around a 386SX-25 and so is NSSI. However, Norton Sysinfo 6 is around 386SX-16 levels or slower.

If the board had a 50MHz FSB option, it should hit around a fast 286.

@Clueless1: I'll try to get those other benchmarks for you later...

Time for a break now, and to decide what VGA card I should use - can't decide on whether this C&T F69000 is worth keeping. Any interests in other benches, feel free to request.

Quite an amazing processor. 😀

As requested by clueless1:

CPU: VIA C3 Ezra-T, 440BX chipset
VGA: C&T F69000

Speed: 1000Mhz ; 133x7.5; L1 enabled
Speedsys = 528.5
3D Bench = 325.4
PC Player = 99.1
Doom: Gametics = 2134; Realtics = 854; FPS = 87.45

Speed: 1000Mhz ; 133x7.5; L1 disabled
Speedsys = 29.9
3D Bench = 32.1
PC Player = 10
Doom: Gametics = 2134; Realtics = 5082; FPS = 14.70

Speed: 1200Mhz ; 150x8; L1 enabled
Speedsys = 632.85
3D Bench = 343.1
PC Player = 110.9
Doom: Gametics = 2134; Realtics = 763; FPS = 97.89

Speed: 1200Mhz ; 150x8; L1 disabled
Speedsys = 34.07
3D Bench = 36.6
PC Player = 11.5
Doom: Gametics = 2134; Realtics = 4447; FPS = 16.80

Speed: 200Mhz ; 66x3; L1 enabled
Speedsys = 105.70
3D Bench = 132.0
PC Player = 31.1
Doom: Gametics = 2134; Realtics = 2073; FPS = 36.02

Speed: 200Mhz ; 66x3; L1 disabled
Speedsys = 11.93
3D Bench = 13.0
PC Player = 4
Doom: Gametics = 2134; Realtics = 12896; FPS = 5.79

As mentioned earlier, Ezra-T doesn't have a Level 2 Cache hierarchy, so no benches for it. The VGA onboard isn't the fastest, but it does seem compatible, and with decent image quality...

I'll upload the above benches into the spreadsheet shortly.

Thanks, j^aws! Quite an impressive chip.

clueless1 wrote:

Thanks, j^aws! Quite an impressive chip.

I'm wondering who here has ordered a VIA C3 because of this 😁

Would be more comfortable to see one table with all settings-results from the fastest to the slowest for Ezra-T 1000. As you also have Nehemiah 1200, its results are similarly interesting.

For video card you may use a standard S3 Trio64V+ or VirgeDX (72 MHz) as most people would use something close by the performance in case of Win9x-DOS build. It's possible also to run 2nd series of tests with ISA, as this may add to slowdown, while there were fast and slow ISA cards to choose from.

Tests that may be done. CPU: Speedsys, Speedtst (with /L), Snooper - they work on wide range of CPUs. Gaming: doom, quake, 3dbench, pcpbench - what Phil used for database. FPU tests for stock and overclocked states: Super Pi Mod. Any other which have a base for comparision.

j^aws wrote:

This is the slowest I can achieve in Speedsys - 9.46pts, using the slowest timings in the BIOS.

200MHz; L1D; BPD; Slowest BIOS timings
and ICD slowdown option seems as not available with this