First post, by Kordanor
Hey there!
I am currently using an AMD K2/500 with a Vodoo 3 3500 and it was mentioned in another thread, that the K2+ and K3+ would be a significant improvement.
I know that the K2 with my Ali chip has the cash issue and I can have a maximum of 128MB of Ram without getting a significant performance hit. But I am not sure of more RAM would make that much of a difference.
The issue I mostly seem to have that newer games like Jagged Alliance 2 (1999) seemed to be struggling and hanging (thats not even a 3D game), my guess is that either the CPU is having issues to keep up or the ISA Soundcard is causing issues.
My Goal however is also to be able to downclock as much as possible to keep compatibility with old DOS games. My K6 2 500 can currently be set down to 500 Mhz. Thats done via jumpers, but thats perfectly fine (I built a doohickey do to that externally)
Of course I also looked into some resources, to get more info about potential performance boosts and characteristics but also saw some contradictions.
I saw the Wiki page here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_K6-III
And that lists the K6-III, K6-III-P, K6-2+ and L6-III
It lists different Front Side bus for all of them. According to the list the K6-3 Only supports a FSB of 100Mhz, but Phil mentioned you can also set it to 66. So that info apparently is incorrect. Source: https://youtu.be/fcAqRbFFQPU?t=730
But does that mean they are all incorrect on the page and can use 66 and 100? For example the K6-2+ only lists 95,97 and 100Mhz
While the L1 Cache is the same on all 4 versions, the L2 cache is not (the K2+ has less), does that have a significant impact? Also only the Plus versions actually have an "extended 3DNow!", which added 5 new DSP instructions". No idea whether that has an impact and on what.
I also checked out Phils video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2Oymnq5DEQ
This benchmarks 550Mhz Models of the II and II+ with 550Mhz each against a KIII+ with 400Mhz at 400Mhz and overclocked to 550 Mhz.
But ofc what is missing there are the K6-3 models. Furthermore the boost of the KIII+ with 400Mhz over the K6-II with 550Mhz isn't huge. Sure, there is overclocking, but ofc you can also never guarantee for 1.6v Models you also pay a premium (currently 140€ on ebay for K6-3 400Mhz with 1.6v and 100€ for AHX 2.2V model)
a K6-II+ with 550Mhz on the other hand can be had for "just" 79€, which looks like the safer bet.
I am also wondering why apparently nobody talks about the AMD K6 III without the +. Are the clock speeds too low that they are not worth it while at the same time there are no low voltage options for overclocking? (K6-III is 450Mhz max, and K6-IIIP is 475Mhz max)
There is no coverage and benchmarks at all of those, at least none I have been able to find.
But there I would also be interested in the differences of K6-III and K6-III-P which on that wiki page, look mostly the same.
Appreciate any opinions, comments and leads!