I say pass... You will sink a lot of money into a deep pit with Via C3 (ask me how I know). Yes, in theory, it's cook having all those customization options... But the only scenario in which I would now seriously consider a C3 is a Samuel 600Mhz or so, and only if I were looking for something to replace my P233MMX (which is faster than the Samuel at 600Mhz).

Never had one, and I assume VIA C3 will be like other MX chips.

All the MX chips I knew had weak FPUs, but they also had an exaggerated unfair reputation because they were nearly always paired with the cheapest expansion cards, cheapest HDDs, and cheapest RAM - if someone installs silicon/drivers that push more work to the CPU then the system will crawl and that's not the CPU's fault.

To get a fair comparison you need to dismiss the Performance Rating written on the chip (bad Public Relations) and instead compare only the core MHz. Running a 150Mhz Cyrix (IBM 233) against a 150MHz Intel, or a 233MHz Cyrix (MII 300) against a 233MHz Intel, was much more interesting than anything the magazines ran with.

And, overclocking was another area that may have unfairly killed their reputation. I am not saying they overclocked well, but failure rates made me think they may been abused more than Intel chips. Using a P233 as an example: If you stick to MHz then 10% of 150MHz is +15MHz, and apply that to get ~165Mhz total - I expect that 10% increase on stock cooling would work for any CPU. Use the same CPU but this time muddle PR and MHz: You might have said 10% of PR233 is +23Mhz, and apply that to get ~173MHz total - I expect that 16% increase on stock cooling would fry any CPU.

Jasin Natael wrote on 2025-11-24, 15:09:

We would have to use 3DMark 2000 or 2001 as there is that FPS bug in 3Dmark 99.

While I'm surprised the "FPS bug" applies to the C3, which is supposed to have a Time Stamp Counter, you might want to try this patch to 3DMark 99, which fixes broken FPS display on processors on which 3DMark 99 does not want to use the time stamp counter: Re: 3dmark99 MegaThread

Nenemiah is pretty good for what it is.

Nehemiah is quite decent. Big improvement of previous cores. The FPU is as fast as the ALU. My 1.2 chip clocks happily to 1.5 on stock voltage.
It's about as fast as a Athlon around 750-800mhz at that speed. Runs very cool and seems to be entirely compatible.

Jasin Natael wrote on 2025-11-25, 14:17:

Nehemiah is quite decent. Big improvement of previous cores. The FPU is as fast as the ALU. My 1.2 chip clocks happily to 1.5 on stock voltage.
It's about as fast as a Athlon around 750-800mhz at that speed. Runs very cool and seems to be entirely compatible.

Can you be more specific about your system spec? I had stability issues with Ezra, Ezra-T and Nehemiah... I was using Slot 1.

Sure,

Intel Seattle SE440BX-2 Mainboard (Slot 1) (Chipset drivers from Phil's website, early version I believe)
VIA C3 Nehemiah 1.2GHz on Super Slocket III adapter
512MB PC133 (2x256)
Abit Siluro nVidia Geforce 3 TI200 (Det 7.76)
Create Labs SB16 ISA Sound (Vibra, can't remember the model, Just windows vxd driver)
Samsung 60GB IDE HDD
CDRom/ZipDrive 100MB
VIA USB 2.0 PCI with NUSB33
Windows 98 SE
DX7.0a

I use Setmul to change the multiplier.
This board doesn't feature any overclocking options in the BIOS or via jumpers.
I have used CPUFSB in the past and it will overclock FSB that way, to some degree.
It used to be rock stable at 133mhz with the Nehemiah and Tualatin's, but it isn't any longer. Maybe caps?
Right now Setmul just runs it at 1.5 from autoexec, it will post and is somewhat stable at 1.6 but isn't 100%.
I think that I have some numbers from the same board and CPU of it at 1533 somewhere on a previous thread.

Does anyone knows a good place to buy a Nehemiah ?

I have a slot1 motherboard and a slocket ready, but can't find C3 cpus for a decent price on ebay, and most are 600/700Mhz

Pino wrote on 2025-11-25, 20:01:

Does anyone knows a good place to buy a Nehemiah ?

I have a slot1 motherboard and a slocket ready, but can't find C3 cpus for a decent price on ebay, and most are 600/700Mhz

I bought mine on eBay from a seller in China. He seems to no longer be selling on eBay.
I'd say just put up a saved search on eBay and eventually one will pop up. I'd just search 'VIA C3' and peruse by speed.
Most sellers won't have any clue if it's Ezra, Samuel, Nehemiah or what have you.

Jasin Natael wrote on 2025-11-25, 18:20:

Sure,

Intel Seattle SE440BX-2 Mainboard (Slot 1) (Chipset drivers from Phil's website, early version I believe)<snip>

Ok, thanks for the info. May I ask a favor? Would you please run 3DMark2000 benchmark mode (the pro version, which is now freeware) at 1024x768x32, and see how long it loops.

Nehemiah did not pass stability for me with this benchmark satisfactorily.

mockingbird wrote on 2025-11-25, 20:43:

Jasin Natael wrote on 2025-11-25, 18:20:

Sure,

Intel Seattle SE440BX-2 Mainboard (Slot 1) (Chipset drivers from Phil's website, early version I believe)<snip>

Ok, thanks for the info. May I ask a favor? Would you please run 3DMark2000 benchmark mode (the pro version, which is now freeware) at 1024x768x32, and see how long it loops.

Nehemiah did not pass stability for me with this benchmark satisfactorily.

Sure thing. I don't that I've ever tried it with the 32-bit mode, and I know that I've never looped it. I usually just test my builds with Unreal flyby demo, if it passes like 20-30 loops with that I call it good, 🤣.
I don't do Prime95 levels of stability tests. I just don't see it as necessary but I will let you know if/when mine crashes.

Edit:
Ok it exited to the desktop at 54 minutes. The machine didn't crash or anything, just exited the program. Windows is still running. I don't know if this is normal behavior for 3DMark 2K on a loop test or not.

does my HP 2133 with c7 @ 1.2Ghz counts?

All the c3 i ever seen came in a Pcchips 789CG and similars paired with the shittiest parts on the market at that time. Then that place was occupied with Durons Spitfire and morgan SOLDERED to similar Pcchips

i really, REALLY hated when i visited a client and had one of those, it was guaranted a waste of time. So of course, when they started to come as a trade in for upgrades, it was going all straight to recycle.

Jasin Natael wrote on 2025-11-25, 22:24:

Edit:
Ok it exited to the desktop at 54 minutes. The machine didn't crash or anything, just exited the program. Windows is still running. I don't know if this is normal behavior for 3DMark 2K on a loop test or not.

Thanks very much for confirming... Yes, the crash to desktop in such a short time means the system is not completely stable.

It's stable enough for most people.

If my systems do not do 24 hours of 3dMark2000 with those parameters (or 3DMark2001SE for a DirectX 8 build), they get disqualified.

This is going to raise a lot of eyebrows, but I think slot1 is a very bad platform for anything over 600mhz... My theory is that signal integrity weakness inherent to the design (which was never meant for more than 300-400mhz in the first place) causes instability.

I did have good stability with Samuel though... But Samuel is going to bring you to Pentium 1 territory... So if you want a Windows95/98se DirectX 6 system, yes go for Samuel.

Living wrote on 2025-11-26, 03:37:

does my HP 2133 with c7 @ 1.2Ghz counts?

I don't see an issue with C7, but you can't do much with a notebook. There's a bunch of desktop Mini-ITX boards with C7 though which are tweakable and expandable. And with some soldering it's probably possible to overclock FSB via PLL modding on those boards.

mockingbird wrote on 2025-11-26, 04:05:

Thanks very much for confirming... Yes, the crash to desktop in such a short time means the system is not completely stable. […]
Show full quote

Jasin Natael wrote on 2025-11-25, 22:24:

Edit:
Ok it exited to the desktop at 54 minutes. The machine didn't crash or anything, just exited the program. Windows is still running. I don't know if this is normal behavior for 3DMark 2K on a loop test or not.

Thanks very much for confirming... Yes, the crash to desktop in such a short time means the system is not completely stable.

It's stable enough for most people.

If my systems do not do 24 hours of 3dMark2000 with those parameters (or 3DMark2001SE for a DirectX 8 build), they get disqualified.

This is going to raise a lot of eyebrows, but I think slot1 is a very bad platform for anything over 600mhz... My theory is that signal integrity weakness inherent to the design (which was never meant for more than 300-400mhz in the first place) causes instability.

I did have good stability with Samuel though... But Samuel is going to bring you to Pentium 1 territory... So if you want a Windows95/98se DirectX 6 system, yes go for Samuel.

Well I certainly see your point. I did some ram cycling and while I ended up with 256MB on a single stick I did manage to increase not only the stability but I was also able to get it tolerant of 133MHZ FSB. Seems to be ideal. 256MB is more than plenty for this system anyway.

Living wrote on 2025-11-26, 03:37:

does my HP 2133 with c7 @ 1.2Ghz counts? […]
Show full quote

does my HP 2133 with c7 @ 1.2Ghz counts?

All the c3 i ever seen came in a Pcchips 789CG and similars paired with the shittiest parts on the market at that time. Then that place was occupied with Durons Spitfire and morgan SOLDERED to similar Pcchips

i really, REALLY hated when i visited a client and had one of those, it was guaranted a waste of time. So of course, when they started to come as a trade in for upgrades, it was going all straight to recycle.

I mean, why not? I don't know much about C7's. I've a little bit of experience with the embedded ones they used in thin clients from my enterprise days. But yeah bring it on, the more the better(er)

Edited OG post, added specs and 3DMark score

3DMark 2000 is a horrible test for stability. MadOnion didn't nail their benchmark quirks until 3DMark 2001.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2025-11-27, 17:28:

3DMark 2000 is a horrible test for stability. MadOnion didn't nail their benchmark quirks until 3DMark 2001.

How so? 3DMark2001SE will also crash to desktop on otherwise perfectly stable systems after 24 hours. It could run for a week, or it could run for a couple of days. It's unpredictable. Maybe that's inherent to Windows 9x, maybe not. But I've found 3DMark2000 to be a pretty good indicator to attain at least a penumbra of intuition on whether your system is at least relatively stable