Just looked... The K6-2+, III+ and III prices are insane. Glad I purchased the ones I wanted before that happened.

brian105 wrote on 2021-06-17, 19:21:

janih wrote on 2021-06-17, 18:25:

If you search ebay for "K6 400ATZ" the lowest price for brand new AMD-K6-III+/400ATZ is 70USD at the moment. Stock voltage is 1.6 and rising the voltage a bit it can easily be overclocked to 550MHZ.

Yeah, but who wants a K6-3+ for $70? Already costs 3x what it should.

I paid €65 inc international shipping for a K6-3+/550. Wouldn't pay that for any other retail K6.

brian105 wrote on 2021-06-17, 19:21:

janih wrote on 2021-06-17, 18:25:

If you search ebay for "K6 400ATZ" the lowest price for brand new AMD-K6-III+/400ATZ is 70USD at the moment. Stock voltage is 1.6 and rising the voltage a bit it can easily be overclocked to 550MHZ.

Yeah, but who wants a K6-3+ for $70? Already costs 3x what it should.

Any "last gasp" product of a generation is going to be pricey years down the road.

Voodoo 5 anyone?

I shudder to think what my FX-9590 will be worth twenty years from now, and I'm not even certain it still works.....

Not to mention the few boards that can even power it.

cyclone3d wrote on 2021-06-17, 21:28:

Not to mention the few boards that can even power it.

Yeah, I had mine on a Asus Crosshair IV Formula-Z.

It was clocked at 5.1ghz pretty much it's whole life at a shade under 1.5v running a Deepcool 360mm AIO......if finally boiled the AIO right at the pump and soaked my board case, RAM everything.

Killed the board but since the AIO was under warranty Deepcool bought me all new everything, still using the same case/cooler motherboard from that little episode today, although i have upgraded my CPU since then.

Thanks to Ryzen staying on Am4 for years now.

But yeah that was a furnace of a chip.

NostalgicAslinger wrote on 2021-06-17, 18:02:

I have a small AMD K6 collection, a K6 200, K6-II 400 2.2V, K6-III 400 AFR with 2.2V, a K6-III+ 400 ACR 2.0V and the K6-III+ 500 ANZ 1.8V.
The 400 ACR runs prime stable with 550 MHz and ~2.2V and the 500 ANZ works in one of my retro systems. It runs prime stable with 550 MHz (1.8V) and 600 MHz with 1.95V.

What program is that to ID your AMD ?

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2021-06-18, 00:04:

NostalgicAslinger wrote on 2021-06-17, 18:02:

I have a small AMD K6 collection, a K6 200, K6-II 400 2.2V, K6-III 400 AFR with 2.2V, a K6-III+ 400 ACR 2.0V and the K6-III+ 500 ANZ 1.8V.
The 400 ACR runs prime stable with 550 MHz and ~2.2V and the 500 ANZ works in one of my retro systems. It runs prime stable with 550 MHz (1.8V) and 600 MHz with 1.95V.

What program is that to ID your AMD ?

AIDA64 Extreme

I shudder to think what my FX-9590 will be worth twenty years from now

Actually both FX-9370 and FX-9590 are still quite pricy due to AMD fanboiz. Heck, even some Phenoms are priced a bit too extreme for what they really worth these days.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2021-06-18, 12:01:

I shudder to think what my FX-9590 will be worth twenty years from now

Actually both FX-9370 and FX-9590 are still quite pricy due to AMD fanboiz. Heck, even some Phenoms are priced a bit too extreme for what they really worth these days.

Yeah, a lot of stuff is overpriced during these crazy times. Even the 8350 chips are selling for far more than they should these days.

Even so I think they have aged quite well compared to their i5 contemporaries of the day. Bu they shouldn't be selling for Ryzen 3 prices either.

That's the reason why i am still using a K6-2 500.

The 2+ and iii(+) prices are way too high compared what i've paid for my K6-2 or my athlon thunderbird.

The thunderbird i can clock @550, 600, 650 ... and further on.

I think, i've paid 3€ - 4€ for the thunderbird.

debs3759 wrote on 2021-06-17, 21:18:

brian105 wrote on 2021-06-17, 19:21:

janih wrote on 2021-06-17, 18:25:

If you search ebay for "K6 400ATZ" the lowest price for brand new AMD-K6-III+/400ATZ is 70USD at the moment. Stock voltage is 1.6 and rising the voltage a bit it can easily be overclocked to 550MHZ.

Yeah, but who wants a K6-3+ for $70? Already costs 3x what it should.

I paid €65 inc international shipping for a K6-3+/550. Wouldn't pay that for any other retail K6.

The groupbuy on CPU-World?

Jasin Natael wrote on 2021-06-18, 13:06:

Even so I think they have aged quite well compared to their i5 contemporaries of the day.

They have not, I've actually tested this.
An overclocked 4 core / 4 thread Core i5 4670K outperforms an FX 9590 (many times by a big margin) in most modern games (albeit, both will be quite slow in many games / suffer from frametime inconsistency issues, even when average framerate is above acceptable levels).

FX 8xxx/9xxx aged somewhat well, if we consider Spectre and Meltdown problem, but at best they can compete with stock 2500K/2600K.

Yeah, they're not inherently bad, they're still usable - especially if you also want to keep your house warm during the winter 😀.
In fact, their main problem has always been the comparison to the Intel architectures of the time, especially the almighty Sandy Bridge.
Had Intel not absolutely CRUSHED IT during that period of time, maybe the Bulldozer/Piledriver architectures wouldn't have seemed so bad... (well, except for the "8 core" fiasco). 😀

Anyway, the honest truth is that buying an i5 during that time would've been the best decision not only when considering the short term, but in the long run as well... so in that sense, the Bulldozer/Piledriver architectures have not really aged well/better than the Intel parts. The intel parts were awesome then, and they're still usable now. The AMD parts were very bad then, and they are usable now (but still slower than Intel).

bloodem wrote on 2021-06-29, 10:14:

Anyway, the honest truth is that buying an i5 during that time would've been the best decision not only when considering the short term, but in the long run as well...

I got an ivy bridge i5 laptop in 2013, and despite it being the 2 core 4 thread version, it still doesn't really feel like it needs replacing. In fact it's kinda frustrating to have seen the price of more or less the exact same performance climb $400, $500, $600.... well Ryzen might bury it now... but there was a while there where laptops were becoming much less mass market, and thus not getting the economy of scale effect and prices were creeping up, until 2020 when everyone needed a "real" computer to work or do school from home, whereupon there was a very hungry mass market and restricted supply, so they less crept, more jumped a bit over last year. I suspect that manufacturing will overcorrect and we'll have a bit of a glut next year sometime.

Bulldozer/Piledriver was just a bad design overall.

Even before the release it was super easy to tell that the design was not good.

AMD tried to use automation and simulation in their design process instead of using experienced CPU design engineers and it bit them in the gonads pretty hard.

bloodem wrote on 2021-06-29, 09:40:

Jasin Natael wrote on 2021-06-18, 13:06:

Even so I think they have aged quite well compared to their i5 contemporaries of the day.

They have not, I've actually tested this.
An overclocked 4 core / 4 thread Core i5 4670K outperforms an FX 9590 (many times by a big margin) in most modern games (albeit, both will be quite slow in many games / suffer from frametime inconsistency issues, even when average framerate is above acceptable levels).

They compare very well in later release, heavily threaded games. iirc the 8320 came out in late 2012 and the 2500k came out in January or so, very late 2011.

The Haswell/Devil's Canyon chips were mid 2013...so quite a bit later. They do line up a bit closer to FX-9590 release date I suppose.

But apples to apples 8320 vs 2500 is more in line than what people realize, they weren't at the time but they are now. Those extra threads be they cores/modules whatever you call them DO count for something.

Phil as well as many others have done videos on this subject with thread intensive optimized games.

K6-3+ may not be too common, and the 550s even less so, but this dropped through my letter box. €55 shipped.

I think I still have a couple NEW ones.
Maybe a good time to sell them ?

bloodem wrote on 2021-06-29, 10:14:

Anyway, the honest truth is that buying an i5 during that time would've been the best decision not only when considering the short term, but in the long run as well... so in that sense, the Bulldozer/Piledriver architectures have not really aged well/better than the Intel parts. The intel parts were awesome then, and they're still usable now. The AMD parts were very bad then, and they are usable now (but still slower than Intel).

I just really don't agree.

In some respects yes the Intel parts were better and almost certainly more efficient. They were certainly better at the time.....but I don't think that they have matured nearly as well as Piledriver in the high thread count applications. Yes the IPC was better and continues to be on a single thread basis. But anyone who was buying into the "unlocked" segment was overclocking anyway, you clock a good 8350 well and pair it with the right ram and GPU and throw it at say Doom Eternal/Strange Brigade Rise of the Tomb Raider, hell even RedDead2 and the 8350 will surprise you.

That isn't even to mention the productivity side of things. Adobe apps for example will leverage those extra threads be they full cores or not. A 4c/4t i5 of the same generation just can't even begin to keep up.

It would be pointless to buy one at current market pricing, but if you bought one when new you are likely sitting pretty when compared to someone who has a i3/i5 variant that cost about the same money.

Just running Windows or single threaded apps doesn't at ALL tell the whole story.