VOGONS


First post, by meljor

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I have build a cyrix system (again), this time withe an asus sp97-v (sis chipset). I like comparing systems in 3dmark99 max and everest benchmarks.
I went with the cyrix mII-300 cpu and clocked it to 3x75mhz=225mhz. The board is fit with edo ram and has 4x 16mb. I have no larger modules so 64mb is the max i can do.

Complete config:

At case and psu
Asus sp97-v
cyrix mII 300
64mb edo
3dfx voodoo1
s3 virge 2mb
4gb quantum bigfoot (a very slowwww BEAST!)
windows 98se

When running 3dmark with the voodoo1 it is slower compared to intel cpu's but nothing shocking and actual games (nfs1, nfs2, nfs3, sega rally) run at a playable speed.

When running everest it is painfully slow in fpu and memory write speed. Fpu is a known factor ofcourse but it is extremely slow i think. Memory write speed is simply aweful.
Memory read speed is exactly the same as the intel mmx (and a bit faster than the k6-2)

Memory write speed for the cyrix: 72mb/sec.
putting in an intel 166mmx with the exact same settings (except the multiplier is locked so it does 2,5x 75mhz= 187mhz) does 760mb/sec!!
putting in a k6-2 (3x75mhz again) gives 540mb/sec.

Even lowering the speed of the mmx cpu to 2x 50mhz fsb= 100mhz still gives 3x the write speed of the cyrix. Fpu tests are the same at this speed! (score of 9 for the cyrix@225mhz and 10 for the 166mmx@100mhz!!!)

Is my cyrix a bad unit? Or is it normal to be THAT slow? It is fast in integer but why is the memory write speed so slow?

Can anyone with a cyrix socket7 cpu at any speed run everest build 2253 for me and post results for the 3 fpu benchmarks and the memory speed tests?

VERY curious what other systems do.

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 1 of 7, by feipoa

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Where do you see the build of Everest? My copy says v2.20.405. I do not see a reference to "build"

What memory scores do you get in Wintune98, Sandra99, PassMark, cachechk (RAM write access time), and Speedsys? Try comparing these with values found on the data table in the Ultimate 686 Benchmark Comparison. There is a PDF which contains all the raw data, as well as an Excel file. I ran the Cyrix MII at various clock speeds and FSBs.

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.

Reply 2 of 7, by meljor

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feipoa wrote:

Where do you see the build of Everest? My copy says v2.20.405. I do not see a reference to "build"

What memory scores do you get in Wintune98, Sandra99, PassMark, cachechk (RAM write access time), and Speedsys? Try comparing these with values found on the data table in the Ultimate 686 Benchmark Comparison. There is a PDF which contains all the raw data, as well as an Excel file. I ran the Cyrix MII at various clock speeds and FSBs.

Everest is version 5.50.2253 beta (you should be able to find it on the internet) please run it for me on ANY cyrix socket7.

Thank you for the suggestions, i will run those programs and compare. I will report here.

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 3 of 7, by feipoa

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If you could provide a download link for this version of Everest and let me know what OS you'd like this tested with, I'll pull out my Cyrix MII box.

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.

Reply 4 of 7, by meljor

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http://www.lavalys.com/support/downloads/

here are different versions but i used 2253 beta and windows 98se

Thank you!

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 5 of 7, by feipoa

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Here are my results:

Read: 310 MB/s
Write: 99 MB/s
Copy: 135 MB/s
Latency: 128.1 ns

Test system was a Cyrix MII-433 running at 3x100. Tyan S1598 - VIA MVP3 chipset - 2 MB Cache - 512 MB SDRAM - Voodoo3 3000 (AGP) - Aureal Vortex2 with XR385 (PCI) - Intel Pro 100 S ethernet (PCI) - Win98SE SP 2.1

The results for the write speed seem to be in line with the other values which Everest adds to their standard results database. They have 128 MB/s write for a K6-III-400 and 177 MB/s for a PII-333. I would expect the memory write results for a K6-III-400 to be faster than the MII-433GP, which it is. I don't know how you are arriving at such obscure values for your Pentium 166MMX and K6-2.

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.

Reply 6 of 7, by meljor

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Thanks!

Nothing obscure about the mmx values when looking at the everest database: the mmx cpu's in there score also very high (mine came even higher because of the 75mhz fsb)
What i did forget is the low scores for the k6 systems on via mvp3 and ali boards.

Did some more testing...

Fired up my k6-3+ system (asus p5a) and it scored the same as the k6-3 in the database. (126mb/s so that seems about right)
Fired up the sp97-v again this time with a k6-2 450 clocked at only 3x66mhz and it still is MUCH higher: 420mb/s
Put in a winchip c6 at the same 3x66mhz setting and it was right up there with the mmx cpu's at 670mb/s (and the fpu scores low as the cyrix: 7 points, really weak)

I will try a k6-2 on an intel board and see how that goes, but it just seems to benefit a lot when it comes to write speed on this sis board. Only cpu that doesn't is the cyrix.

mvp3 and ali are simply slow with write speeds, that's for sure. Glad to see my cyrix is fine, it is just a very slow cpu (as is the winchip c6) 🤣

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 7 of 7, by feipoa

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I seem to recall my Cyrix MII CPU not performing well with my Asus P5A-B motherboard. You should at least run Speedsys to compare. There is an option to get the individual, numeric, RAM write, read, and move values for MMX and non-MMX instructions.

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.