First post, by vetz
- Rank
- l33t
I finally got my two adapters to make a K6-2 run on a non-supported motherboard. One Evergreen Spectra 400 and one Kingston Turbochip 366mhz. I had no idea what would work and whatnot, so to be sure I atleast got some upgrade I bought a 233mhz Pentium 1 and one 266mhz Tillamook Socket 7. I was 100% confident the 233mhz would work nomatter what. My motherboard can only go up to 3.0x multiplier and 66mhz bus. From there the adapters have to take it further.
So I pop in the Evergreen Spectra in my Compaq Presario 4766 and don't expect anything. I have been doing alot of research to try and find some information if this upgrade would work or not. I have had my eyes on this since it came out back in 1999. I even remember sending an email to Powerleap (the biggest company of the cpu upgrade adapters) asking if my computer were supported, which they were unsure, but most likely negative. I could never find my specific model listed anywhere, but models similar to mine were said to not be supported.
I turn on the power switch and the screen comes on... I think this is a good sign, but it will probably crash on POST. I wait eagerly and to my big amazement there is no crash, but a PC-speaker beep! Windows starts loading and very soon I'm inside Windows 98SE without any issues. I fire up CPUID and it confirms that I now have 400mhz with a AMD K6-II processor.
Windows feels alittle faster than usual, but I then fire up Wintune 97 and I now have double the score from the 200mhz system. Note that this benchmark tests parts individually in the system. So next up are the two benchmark games from the 90's. Quake 1 and Quake 2. Here are my results:
Quake 2
s_initsound 0
snd_restart
timedemo 1
demomap demo1.dm2
- 200mhz - 640x480 single - 37.6
200mhz - 640x480 SLI - 37.9 fps
200mhz - 800x600 single - 35.7 fps
200mhz - 800x600 SLI - 37.7 fps
200mhz - 1024x768 SLI - 36.8 fps
233mhz - 640x480 single - forgot to run this one
233mhz - 640x480 SLI - 41.1 fps
233mhz - 800x600 single - 38.1 fps
233mhz - 800x600 SLI - 40.7 fps
233mhz - 1024x768 SLI - 39.4 fps
400mhz - 640x480 single - 41.9 fps
400mhz - 640x480 SLI - 43 fps
400mhz - 800x600 single - 38.7 fps
400mhz - 800x600 SLI - 43.4 fps
400mhz - 1024x768 SLI - 40.8 fps
GLQuake
timedemo demo1.dem
- 200mhz - 640x480 sli - 54.4 fps
200mhz - 1024x768 sli - 45.2 fps
400mhz - 640x480 single - 56.6 fps
400mhz - 640x480 sli - 56.9 fps
400mhz - 1024x768 sli - 45.8 fps
Tbh I am not that impressed. I really expected more from this upgrade. The two 12mb Voodoo 2 in SLI should not be the bottlenecks here. In Quake 2 I have an increase of 5.7 FPS in 800x600 SLI mode. In 1024x768, which I normally play in the increase is even less. In Quake 1 there is barely any performance increase.
So, others thinking of doing cpu adapter upgrade, think it through. I'm gonna keep the AMD K6-II in my system, but I hope it won't cause too much compatibility issues with games. Do you guys have any idea where the bottleneck can be in the system? Are the k6-II really that sucky? I mean, the 233mhz is almost up there with it.
It is a shame I couldn't get the 266mhz to work. It booted up, but I couldn't get past POST. The Kingston Turbochip didn't work with the AMD K6-II that came with it. It only worked with the Pentium 233mhz. The Spectra worked without issues, but I could only test it with the 400mhz K6-II. I'm confident the 266mhz will work in the Spectra IF I could pry loose the K6-II CPU from it. It is just sitting so extremely tight and I don't want to use too much force. As a last try I put the 266mhz directly into the socket and booted up the computer. I got the same screen as when I tried it with the Kingston Turbochip!
I'm pretty sure the Pentium 266mhz will beat or atleast match the AMD k6-II running at 400mhz. Just need to find another Spectra adapter (that I can use some force on) or a Powerleap PL-Pro MMX Plus (the newest revision).[/code]