VOGONS


Super Socket 7: VIA MVP3 vs. ALi Aladdin V

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Reply 60 of 82, by Nemo1985

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feipoa wrote:

GF2 has no problem? Only a problem with GF2+V1. What about GF2 + Voodoo2?

I don't have any v2 in my collection
Edit: I forgot to mention that I changed the gf2 mx with a permedia 2 card I received some days ago and I didn't have issue with the tomb raider 3dfx demo.

Last edited by Nemo1985 on 2019-01-24, 23:11. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 61 of 82, by meljor

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Nemo1985 wrote:
I tested the Asus P5A (rev 103) that before selling it, it was slower than Epox, but I tested it just with k6-2 500, which revis […]
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meljor wrote:

I can agree on the Epox board, I only have Mvp3g2 version but it is quick and seems to be a tiny bit faster as my DFI and Aopen board with the same chipset. (Epox 1mb vs 512kb DFI and Aopen).
However...the Ga-5ax is a very nice board but it is not the fastest. At least in my 3dmark99 and 2000 testing and also Everest benchmarks the Asus P5A was faster and P5A-B the fastest. Also have the Ga-5aa but it can like it's atx brother not beat the Asus boards.

Ali V is faster in memoryspeed and agp performance/3d, that was my conclusion. Happy to see what your results are! I did most of my tests with AMD k6-3+ and a few with mmx.

I tested the Asus P5A (rev 103) that before selling it, it was slower than Epox, but I tested it just with k6-2 500, which revision did you try?
For sure the Gigabyte has more fsb options the one I bought (well the whole system actually) has a k6-3+ at 633 mhz (115x5.5). I will compare the memory results with the p5a, it will be interesting.

I have some bad news: The Tillamook doesn't boot, it's weird because it was working on the similar Epox, while with cyrix, there is no option for linear burst (not even with modbin is visible, just wiped out, even if there is one on the manual) but there is another voice: Cyrix M2 ADS# delay, despite setting it to enabled or disabled the speedsys doesn't work properly.
Any suggestion?

I have only compared them with a k6-3+. Overclocking the Epox does not work very well so Asus beats it at that also. I have the p5a and p5a-b in every revision: 1.03,104,105 (p5a-b only) and 1.06 (p5a only). Revision doesn't make a huge difference in performance (besides the fact that 1.05 and 1.06 do not work with k6-2+ and k6-3+, it's a known hardware bug).

Every time I test a mvp3 board the memory perormance stays behind the Ali boards, sometimes a lot. But your Epox is a 2mb cache board and should be the fastest mvp3, maybe that one is indeed faster as an Ali based board? Never came across a 2mb version unfortunately so cannot test it myself.

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 62 of 82, by Nemo1985

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meljor wrote:
Nemo1985 wrote:
I tested the Asus P5A (rev 103) that before selling it, it was slower than Epox, but I tested it just with k6-2 500, which revis […]
Show full quote
meljor wrote:

I can agree on the Epox board, I only have Mvp3g2 version but it is quick and seems to be a tiny bit faster as my DFI and Aopen board with the same chipset. (Epox 1mb vs 512kb DFI and Aopen).
However...the Ga-5ax is a very nice board but it is not the fastest. At least in my 3dmark99 and 2000 testing and also Everest benchmarks the Asus P5A was faster and P5A-B the fastest. Also have the Ga-5aa but it can like it's atx brother not beat the Asus boards.

Ali V is faster in memoryspeed and agp performance/3d, that was my conclusion. Happy to see what your results are! I did most of my tests with AMD k6-3+ and a few with mmx.

I tested the Asus P5A (rev 103) that before selling it, it was slower than Epox, but I tested it just with k6-2 500, which revision did you try?
For sure the Gigabyte has more fsb options the one I bought (well the whole system actually) has a k6-3+ at 633 mhz (115x5.5). I will compare the memory results with the p5a, it will be interesting.

I have some bad news: The Tillamook doesn't boot, it's weird because it was working on the similar Epox, while with cyrix, there is no option for linear burst (not even with modbin is visible, just wiped out, even if there is one on the manual) but there is another voice: Cyrix M2 ADS# delay, despite setting it to enabled or disabled the speedsys doesn't work properly.
Any suggestion?

I have only compared them with a k6-3+. Overclocking the Epox does not work very well so Asus beats it at that also. I have the p5a and p5a-b in every revision: 1.03,104,105 (p5a-b only) and 1.06 (p5a only). Revision doesn't make a huge difference in performance (besides the fact that 1.05 and 1.06 do not work with k6-2+ and k6-3+, it's a known hardware bug).

Every time I test a mvp3 board the memory perormance stays behind the Ali boards, sometimes a lot. But your Epox is a 2mb cache board and should be the fastest mvp3, maybe that one is indeed faster as an Ali based board? Never came across a 2mb version unfortunately so cannot test it myself.

The cache on the mb does a a difference in cpu without onboard cache, I tested mb with mvp3 with 512kb, 1024 and this one with 2048, I can't say how much the difference is because I used different cpus, but the epox mb are also better tweaked).
From the memory point of view in Everest Epox is always ahead against Asus.
Memory Read: 311 vs 270
Memory Write: 103 vs 100
Memory Copy: 154 vs 141
Memory Latency: 121.5 vs 150.6
I used the fastest timing I could in the bios: Epox: 2-2-2-5 Asus: 2-2-2-6
Cpu: K6-2 500

To my knowledge the cache works in different way between ali and via, that's why via needs a fast cache (Epox uses 4 ns chips), I'd be curious to try an aladdin with 1mb cache, but I don't know if they ever made any.
Also it would be interesting to see if there is any noticeable performance difference between revisions if you are willing to do some tests with your asus collection, for Gigabyte I know that later revisions had an updated chipset revision (probably the asus too) and they were more overclock friendly.

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Reply 63 of 82, by amadeus777999

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Is there a way to get an NVidia card, like the TNT/2, working correctly when the chipset software is installed?
Both on VIA and ALi chipsets I get bluescreens after installing their respective drivers.

I have to recheck for the speed difference but an "optimal" combination seems to be cranking up the fsb , disabling L2 Cache, and using a K6-2+ or III(+).

Has anybody had any look running a board with 133 fsb at the fastest settings(on board cache disabled of course)?
Every memory stick I tested(PC133/CL2) failed in memtest.

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Reply 64 of 82, by Nemo1985

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I've finally ended the test with Gigabyte GA-5AX rev 5.2.
Here is some notes:

1) Tillamoook doesn't work, again... I also thought the cpu could be defective but it was working, I will test it somewhere else.

2) Cyrix cpus, the linearburst option is enabled by default, no bios option.

3) The system was much less stable compared to MVP3, I played a bit with ali utility, I was able to use gat 2 but only with agp 1x, without issues on games but Winstone 99 had many troubles, the only way to make it work were with safe settings, I also had to format and start all over once because the OS was damaged beyond repair, also cpus needed more voltage compared to Epox MB. With Amd cpus the stability was acceptable with Cyrix much worse.

4) The mb lacks the whole system monitor present in Asus p5a, I still wonder why Gigabyte took this decision

5) This mb has much more fsb and cpu voltage settings, it's also indeed much more overclocking friendly, the guy where I bought the system from was using a k6-3+ at 633 (105*5.50) with no issues.

That being said, I prefer the Via chipset, it was much more stable, but performance results are weird, with pure benchmarks Via is faster, while in game benchmarks Ali is better, with Everest memory and cpu benchmarks shows better performance for Via.

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Last edited by Nemo1985 on 2019-02-04, 10:17. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 65 of 82, by appiah4

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Where does MVP4 fit in all of this? Is it comparable to MVP3 aside from not having a free AGP Bus?

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.

Reply 66 of 82, by Nemo1985

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appiah4 wrote:

Where does MVP4 fit in all of this? Is it comparable to MVP3 aside from not having a free AGP Bus?

I have no idea, personally I never had interest in MVP4 or ali aladdin 7.

Reply 67 of 82, by noshutdown

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Nemo1985 wrote:
appiah4 wrote:

Where does MVP4 fit in all of this? Is it comparable to MVP3 aside from not having a free AGP Bus?

I have no idea, personally I never had interest in MVP4 or ali aladdin 7.

mvp4 is reckoned to have similar memory performance to the mvp3, but it was targeted to lower end market so most boards were equipped with 512kb cache only, so its not remotely as fast as mvp3 with 2mb cache, let alone the agp slot.
ali7 is probably one of the chipsets with fewest boards manufactured in history, so far i have never found any info on ali7 boards from brands other than pcchips.

Reply 68 of 82, by Nemo1985

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noshutdown wrote:
Nemo1985 wrote:
appiah4 wrote:

Where does MVP4 fit in all of this? Is it comparable to MVP3 aside from not having a free AGP Bus?

I have no idea, personally I never had interest in MVP4 or ali aladdin 7.

mvp4 is reckoned to have similar memory performance to the mvp3, but it was targeted to lower end market so most boards were equipped with 512kb cache only, so its not remotely as fast as mvp3 with 2mb cache, let alone the agp slot.
ali7 is probably one of the chipsets with fewest boards manufactured in history, so far i have never found any info on ali7 boards from brands other than pcchips.

Thank you for the info, well pc chips (aka pc cheap), the mb were usually slow back in time...
There was a socket 7 chipset manufactured from sis that supported dual channel sdram, that was interesting...

Reply 69 of 82, by The Serpent Rider

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that supported dual channel sdram, that was interesting...

VIA supported bank interleaving though.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 70 of 82, by Nemo1985

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Here is the screenshots of everest results:
Cpu AES: https://i.imgur.com/VDN5tMr.jpg
Cpu PhotoWorxxx: https://i.imgur.com/4zSk5sI.jpg
Cpu Queen: https://i.imgur.com/mFLnN89.jpg
Cpu Zlib: https://i.imgur.com/CQmUGKQ.jpg
Fpu Julia: https://i.imgur.com/unNyEaQ.jpg
Fpu Mandel: https://i.imgur.com/ILFaBS3.jpg
Fpu SinJulia: https://i.imgur.com/WfK2c9n.jpg

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Reply 71 of 82, by sheath

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Sorry if this seems like a zombie thread post, but it seemed like the appropriate thread to ask. I've had my P5A-B board (BIOS Rev 1011 Beta 005) running with a K6-2 500 CXT (500A]FX) on Win98SE with unofficial SP 2.1a and pretty much whatever video card I tried on it stable since Christmas. But the grass is always greener elsewhere, and I've kept tracking K6-2 and III plus processors until I landed a K6-2+ 500 (ACZM) last week for an acceptable, to me, price of $17.

With a little effort I got the K6-2+ running somewhat stably at 2.1v instead of the 2.3v my regular K6-2 500 needs to be stable. I did not have to reinstall Win98SE, I just reinstalled the ALI integrated drivers (1.91) and Voodoo Banshee drivers (final ref 4.12.01.1222). I ran a few benchmarks fine, but ultimately found the system to be relatively unstable. If I left the computer on it would be crashed when I came back to it, no standby modes or HDD spindown are enabled it would just be on a black screen with a blinking cursor or at the "it is now safe to shutdown" screen the unofficial Service pack 2.1 shows sporadically.

That was all workable though, I kept tooling with the ALIAGPCC (agp_utility140) settings thinking it was just some random setting causing the instability. Then I tried CTU (Central Tweaking Utility) and got nothing but trouble. I decided these two programs were conflicting with each other, so I set up everything in ALIAGPCC and then just tried to use CTU for the multiplier function, which worked -- sort of. The first time I dropped the multiplier to 2X for a 200Mhz benchmark run 3DMARK2000 returned a CPU score over 30 points higher, as if I had overclocked the CPU. Both 3DMARK and CTU reported 200Mhz, but the entire benchmark run was faster, as if maybe the CPU had been tripped to see that 2X multiplier as 6X on the board.

This would have been great, but it crashed windows whenever I tried to go back to 5X. The next time I set the multiplier down to 2X everything benchmarked appropriately and it even completed both 3DMARK 2000 and Quake III benchmarks no problem. but then I set it back to 5X it immediately locked Windows and when I restarted I was greeted with a black screen no POST. After removing everything, changing the multiplier and voltage on the P5A-B board, and restarting a dozen times I finally got it to post again after leaving it unplugged with the BIOS battery out for a couple of hours. From then on Windows returned a Protection error, citing msgsrv32 not responding if it got in to Windows, or CONFIGMG Windows Protection Error before Windows even booted. Nothing resolved this, and I could not even get my Win98SE install disk to start a reinstall of Windows.

I put the K6-2 500 back in, changed the voltage back to 2.3v and Windows boots fine with no errors. I really think this is some kind of Windows driver or setting issue, but I just don't know what else to try.

System:
Asus P5A-B BIOS Rev 1011 Beta 005
Windows 98SE Unofficial SP2.1A
ALI integrated AGP drivers 1.91 (and 2.13)
Voodoo Banshee AGP (finalref-1.04.00 4.12.01.1222)
Promise Ultra 133 TX2 IDE controller
Maxtor 6 Y250PO
3COM Etherlink III ISA (3C509b-TPO PnP Mode)
AWE 64 ISA (disabled during troubleshooting)
Matrox Mystique (disabled, BIOS set to AGP, removed currently)

K6-2 500 CXT (500AFX)

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K6-2+ 500 (500ACZM)

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Reply 72 of 82, by meljor

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On most k6-2 and higher cpu's (including the ''+'' mobile versions) the 2x multi works as 6x. This was done so any board could use the 6x multi without it being selectable with jumpers etc. Even the older non-super 7 boards could be upgraded with a k6-2: just select the 2x multi and the 66mhz fsb and there was a very nice ugrade from your pentium to a 400mhz amd...

Which revison BOARD do you have? (not bios). 1.05 and 1.06 are not compatible with a ''+'' version cpu (unless you mod the cpu). These board revisions will be very slow and unstable with those cpu's.
1.03 and 1.04 should work fine. 1.05 and 1.06 will work fine with a normal k6-3 cpu.

If you have a 1.03 or 1.04 board I would try a 2.2v setting for the cpu and a good cooler (and thermal paste ofcourse). Ali drivers I use the 2.13, they are the best.

Also check your psu for voltages and your harddrive, a lot of them get really old now and start failing. If nothing works you might want to recap the board.

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 73 of 82, by sheath

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I've got Rev 1.04, so I'll try 2.2v, I think I skipped that to 2.3 and it wouldn't post. This board has no speaker, and I don't have one to hook up to it currently, so I just get power on and nothing at all on screen when a jumper setting doesn't work. I really only went with the Baby AT board for the price this auction went for, I've never had luck with these or Micro ATX boards. At any rate, I'll give it a shot now that the regular K6-2 got me back in to Windows.

So should I completely avoid changing to 2X multiplier to avoid the Windows errors I created?

Recapping all of my good old stuff is in my future, I've been sourcing equipment to make the process easier for about a year now and will have to bite the bullet soon. I'll test the PSU too, I just figured it's fine as the system has been stable since last year with th K6-2 500 in there.

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Reply 74 of 82, by meljor

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Most k6-2+ cpu's should do 600mhz stable at around 2,1v or 2,2v so the 2x setting should be fine. But if that is the source of your problems then ofcourse leave the setting at 5x (or 5.5x).

The P5A series is my personal favorite of the ss7 boards and P5A-B is normally a great board. Just keep testing, you will find your issue hopefully.

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 75 of 82, by sheath

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Thanks, yes it booted back into Windows after swapping in the K6-2+ again and setting voltage to 2.2v. What I'm actually after with this chip is the slower speeds, I was hoping to test older graphics cards' benefiting Pentium 1 era processors without actually putting a P1 or K6 in the system. Should I uninstall/reinstall any Device manager items when I switch out a K6-2 with a plus?

Also, I've been using a Startech (ugh) heatsink/fan and non-expired arctic silver 5 compound. The plus has been running about ten degrees cooler than the regular K6-2, so I think heat isn't the issue. I'll reinstall Ali Integrated driver 2.13 again and see how things go after I do a couple of stress tests. Maybe I'll try setmul instead of CTU next time I go for lowering the multiplier in windows.

-edit-

Yep, it's still a no go. After running 3dmark 2000 and 2001 and Dethkarz all night the system just started crashing randomly. I left it off all night and this morning it returned to the same mix of Windows Protection errors after it seemed like the video output crashed, tons of garbled ASCII characters and flashing symbols over a quarter of the screen. I popped back in my K6-2 500 AFX and everything is back to normal. Maybe I just got what I paid for with this plus and it is just unstable.

Reply 76 of 82, by kool kitty89

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sheath wrote on 2019-02-18, 22:56:

Thanks, yes it booted back into Windows after swapping in the K6-2+ again and setting voltage to 2.2v. What I'm actually after with this chip is the slower speeds, I was hoping to test older graphics cards' benefiting Pentium 1 era processors without actually putting a P1 or K6 in the system. Should I uninstall/reinstall any Device manager items when I switch out a K6-2 with a plus?

Also, I've been using a Startech (ugh) heatsink/fan and non-expired arctic silver 5 compound. The plus has been running about ten degrees cooler than the regular K6-2, so I think heat isn't the issue. I'll reinstall Ali Integrated driver 2.13 again and see how things go after I do a couple of stress tests. Maybe I'll try setmul instead of CTU next time I go for lowering the multiplier in windows.

Any basic white goo (zinc or aluminum oxide) type paste should work fine for these and the tacky kind has worked well for me (actually some very old Techspray silicon-free stuff, but also the rather nice modern Arctic Silver Ceramique 2, which tested to have nearly identical performance to Arctic Silver 5, potentially kept better in storage, and was definitely cheaper and easier to clean up; I got one of the larger 25g syringes around 8 years ago, I think). The less viscous, oily/creamy zinc oxide pastes are way easier to apply to large heat spreaders and ceramic-top CPUs, though.

One thing to also consider with K6s and K6-2s is many, if not all, have some sort of thermal glue/epoxy or dry, waxy (or hardening over time) thermal material applied to the die and few if any are soldered on (and the tops are aluminum, I think, which complicates solder anyway). Whatever it is, at least some cases are bonded pretty well to the heatspreader and delidding can break the die while lifting (that or people just apply to much pressure and end up bumping the die, but I see lots of examples of delidding gone bad with K6s and K62s).

like this:
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/wqcAAOSwCV5caEMh/s-l1600.jpg

Though I can't vouch for the story behind that (compared to forum posts of actual experiences) and for some reason it looks like all the K6-III examples there had their dies come off entirely.
The skinny rectangles should be K6-2s, those larger dies with glue all around the edge are 350 nm K6s, I think, and the ones with asymmetric resistor mounting should be IIIs. (one or two III+ dies in there, too, I think that square die on the far left is a 2+ or 3+ given the resistor configuration and die size/shape) I'm not sure what the K6 250 nm die looks like, but it should be slightly smaller than the K6-2 die.

I snagged an intact, delidded K6-III, and the dimensions look just like the missing-die examples I mentioned, and with glue at the corners like with K6-2s.

In any case, I'd think the die to heatspreader contact might be the main limiting factor for overheating and quality thermal paste might not do much on cases with poorer TIM applications.
I can't recommend delidding though ... and if that glue is epoxy based, I don't think heating it would help reduce the force needed to pry it off. (though the gap between the glue points looks wide enough to get a good sided prying tool in there without putting too much pressure on the ceramic)

If you did delid a K6-2 or 2+, I'd also still use the heatspreader and just replace the TIM with quality thermal compound. (given the intermittent and random issues with your K6-2+, heat might not be a factor anyway, or not a consistent factor at least)

Yep, it's still a no go. After running 3dmark 2000 and 2001 and Dethkarz all night the system just started crashing randomly. I left it off all night and this morning it returned to the same mix of Windows Protection errors after it seemed like the video output crashed, tons of garbled ASCII characters and flashing symbols over a quarter of the screen. I popped back in my K6-2 500 AFX and everything is back to normal. Maybe I just got what I paid for with this plus and it is just unstable.

I've had that garbled BIOS before, but somtimes it happens on the first post after a crash/unstable configuration, but not after another hard reset. (plus I've had odd cases of unstable configurations that sometimes post and sometimes won't even when cold, though none of those will boot to windows ... though this might have only happened with 6x86 or MII overclock attempts, not sure)

With my (Rev 1.004 I think, maybe 003) P5A-B, I've had relatively little luck with overclocking 2+ and 3+ chips to 600 MHz and also not great luck with >100 MHz or even 100 MHz when set to CL2 timing (which should work for 7 ns PC-133 RAM, but doesn't seem to be happy, especially at the base 3.5 VIO) and for some reason 110 MHz is sometimes more stable than 105 MHz.
My K6-3+ 400 (1.6V) and K6-2 550 (2.0V) both max out at about 570-575 MHz, and happier at lower FSB (95x6 or 105x5.5) and raising the voltage over 2.0 didn't help a whole lot if at all. (and refused to post if I tried 2.4V or so, and/or gave me motherboard beeping error codes of some sort that I didn't work out ... maybe complaining about no CPU or no RAM inserted)

I've had some similar problems with K6-2s and K6s in my boards, where upping the voltage causes them to fail to post, and the threshold depends on the individual example. I've even overclocked some on stock and reduced voltage with good results, but the same chip fails to post when overvolted at the same multiplier and bus speeds. (usually over 2.6V, but I think one 250 nm K6 classic wouldn't even do 2.5) Though I do have one K6-2/500 that isn't happy below 2.3V, so these CPUs seem weird and not related to heat.

On that note, I've had very good luck undervolting some K6-2s and I think all the 250 nm 2.2V K6 classics I've tried in the P5A along with most Pentium MMXs, especially 233s, and (maybe surprisingly) a lot of Cyrix and IBM 6x86Ls and MX/MII chips (even some of the single-rail 6x86s, though I don't think the chipset or RAM itself likes going much below 3.0V, so the latter case is more limited) and the cyrix chips all seem to overclock to some extent and some exceptionally well, and some just surprising for overclocking at all. (including 3.5V rated parts, both 650 and 350 nm, going by CPUshack's identification, seem to do at least one speed grade higher, and most PR166s will turn into PR200s at 3.5V 2x75) All my 250 nm (NS and IBM both) Cyrix chips seem to do fine at 2.2V, sometimes lower, at the stock speed settings (and 250 MHz rated PR-366 and 333 parts seem to do 3x100 at 2.9V or slightly higher and tend to post up to 333 MHz, but don't seem very stable ... so sort of like 350 nm P55C chips) 350 nm 6x86MX chips don't overclock much on stock 2.9V, but do OK maxed out at 3.5 (and I wonder how they'd do at 4.0V like the 350 nm Nx586 ... or AMD's 350 nm x5 in a 486 board on 4.oV)
I'd initially thought the VIO selection jumpers would work for the 3.3V rail of Socket 5 chips, but apparently those jumpers get bypassed in Socket 5 mode (presumably socket-pin-detected by the chipset) and the Vcore jumpers select the CPU+IO voltage together from 2 to 3.5V. (which on mine seems to read about 3.54V in Sandra 99, which seems more consistent than the BIOS voltage readings for some reason)

Given the poor reputation for overclocking 6x86s have, I wonder if my board is unusually happy with them or something odd like that. I'll need to try other boards at some point. And even overclocked (including 3x66 or 3x68/69 MHz 6x86Ls at 3.5V) they don't seem to run all that hot, especially for the not-excellent airflow of my baby AT horizontal/desktop case (though I guess the desktop orientation at least allows better convection around the CPU socket and the P5A-B's socket placement is better inline with the PSU exhaust flow and also quite nice for the typical exhaust fan location of ATX cases, so that's nice on top of not blocking any of the expansion slots, though long AGP cards can block cpu heatsink airflow)

That K6-III that was delidded appears to be an embedded model or just the rare 2.2V rated desktop model. It's definitely not a III+ and the motherboard actually identifies it as a K6-3 (3+ and 2+ usually show up as 'MMX processor' or some such) and appears to actually run stable at 500 MHz all the way down to 2.0V, which is really neat ... and cool. 😀

It doesn't overclock well much above 500 MHz even at higher voltages and does the weird thing where it won't post somewhere above 2.4V (I forget exactly where, maybe 2.6), but it'll probably do something in the 520 MHz range at some setting. (I was pretty happy with the 5x100 2.0V set-up though)
I almost got a lot of 3 K6 series chips back in 2010 or so with a typical K6-III 450 2.4V at something like $20 for the lot I think, but decided to pick up one of those 3+ 400 embedded 1.6V desolders instead and ended up regretting it (it ran OK, did 550, but for the price at the time, not so great and less compatible with other motherboards ... plus I ended up wanting to see how an old K6-III ran), then the IIIs got scarce and expensive, aside from the 333 that would pop up once in a while (and I missed several times) and unreasonably high BIN listings. (I think there's a 2.2V 450 on there at over $100 ... wait no it's $150 along with a 2.4V one at the same price, but at least the 2.2V ones are actually rare and unusual) III+ chips don't seem to be that much more expensive or unusual these days, though 2+s aren't quite as cheap or common. (a relative abundance of 550 2+ chips, though)

Also, the only K6 series chips that have actually done 600 MHz with any kind of stability are some 500 and 550s that tolerate 2.5-2.8V reasonably well. (I don't think I got any to post at 2.9 even at lower speeds, but might not have tried that much, so among other things, can't say the 250 nm IBM/NS process on Cyrix parts was especially 2.9+ volt friendly)
On that note, though I do somewhat suspect they went for 2.9V across the board to just save cost on finer speed/voltage rating and testing and to be compatible with older and less expensive Socket 7 motherboards, also possibly why it took so long to release 100 MHz FSB parts: my P5A-B seems happy with every 6x86MX chip I've tried at 100 MHz, 350 and 250 nm both, at stock voltage and often below, at least for all the 200 MHz or higher rated parts ... some of the 166-188 MHz parts might have also overclocked happily to 2x100, but the 3x66, 2.5x83, 3x75 and higher parts all do 2x100 or 2.5x100 if not better, so all the PR266/300/333/366 parts plus some 233s and maybe 200s)
I've gotten my 6x86L PR200+ to do 2x100, but not without some signs of instability, and similar with some other 6x86s (including 650 nm parts) at 1x100 even under-clocked, so the I/O portion of the chip seems to be a possible limiting factor there, but 2x83 and 3x66 are fine, even 3x68 at 3.5V.

Oh and Sheath, I assume you wanted a 2+ or 3+ due to the ability to use the PowerNow! feature with a software utility to change the multiplier, right? Otherwise, earlier model K6-2s go all the way down to 2x multiplier (so 120 MHz in the P5A-B with the 60 MHz FSB setting), but if you wanted the flexibility to do multiple trials without a reset and jumper change, the + chips are convenient. Though I'm also not sure why you'd need to overclock it if you wanted to use slower speed settings. (6x66 for 400 MHz clocking down to 133 with PowerNow! should be useful with PCI/AGP clocks at stock 33/66 MHz, though 75 MHz could be relevant too, even though AMD never explicitly supported it ... I imagine it was a popular option for running K6-2 300/66 chips and 266s that wouldn't do 100 MHz FSB and/or just on cheaper motherboards and even ones without 4x multiplier settings, though that'd go up to 75x6 for late model K6-2s)

Meanwhile, 6x86s are convenient for dropping down to Pentium 66 or 486 territory with the 1x multiplier, but that's even better on boards that go down to 50 MHz. (and a fun side note: Sandra 99 defined my 6x86s at 60 MHz as PR-79.8, 66-75 MHz as PR-90, and 83 MHz as PR-100 ... I forget what it thought of 1x95 or 1x100, but the BIOS just calls 1x100 PR120 and 60-83 are all ID'd as PR-90)

Reply 77 of 82, by Skalabala

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ALi driver 1.72 and 1.82 I find to be the best performance wise and stability.
Sometimes when the system is unstable you fix it by going into Regedit and then change setting in the ALi driver 😀
My K6 3+ chips stability is not one the same. The best chip is stable at 1.8V 600mhz.
The world record is 840Mhz 😁 so good chips are out there!

Reply 78 of 82, by Nemo1985

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Hello people, how's going?
Since cause of the lockdown I have some free time I was thinking to do another round up of cpu tests with a ss7 platform.
This time i'm going to use an Aopen X59 PRO, not the fastest mb out there but it has many voltage settings, plus I got recently some hoarding about ss7 cpus, to it would be the right time to integrate.
Pc configuration:

Aopen X59 PRO
128 mb memory cl2
Nvidia Geforce 2 MX400 64mb
Dos 7.1 testing and Windows 98
4gb CF for dos and a random hard drive for windows 98
Via 4in1 v4.26
Detonator v8.05

The benchmark will be the same of last time:

Dos: 3D Bench 1.0c, Chris 3D 320, Chris 3D 640, PC Player 320, Quake 320, Quake 640 and Doom

Windows: Winstone 99 Business, Incoming, Mdk2 800x600x16, 3dmark99, 3dmark2k, Quake 2 640, Quake 2 3dnow 640, Quake 2 800, Quake 2 3dnow 800, Quake 2 1024, Quake 2 3dnow 1024

Now about the frequency, the lowest will be 250 mhz and the highest will be the k6-2 cpu at 500.
Do you think a comparison at same frequency could be interesting? If yes it will be at 250 mhz (that's due to the cyrix 6x86MX 250) or 300 this will rule out the 6x86mx cpu.
I will wait for some feedbacks before start.

Reply 79 of 82, by feipoa

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Benchmarks at the same freq. are always the most interesting in my opinion. 300 MHz is a nice round number and you should be able to get some P233MMX results at 300 MHz as well. As far as I recall, the Cx6x86MX is the same as the MII, so not having the 6x86MX isn't a loss.

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