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Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2001 3:31 pm Post subject:

The other day I was thinking that the new Cyrix processors would be incredible overclockers - after all, they are designed to run 'cool' under normal conditions (most only require a passive heatsink), have low power requirements, yet run on a 133Mhz FSB. I expected to see phenomenal clock gains being possible, similar to those possible on the early Celery's.

Bear in mind that I already know that they are designed as 'value' processors, and are not designed to compete with PIII's, P4's or (need I say it) Athlons, but I did expect them to at least match Cu-mine Celery's, if not out-perform them. I decided to check out some benchmark scores at a few well-known review sites.

I could not believe my eyes when I saw the benchmarks. Of course, I wasn't expecting anything too special from Via/Cyrix but FLOP-for-FLOP, even early 66Mhz FSB Celery's (Cu-mine) were much faster than the C3. It's performance compared to the Duron was, of course, laughable.

I have not been able to find out whether the multiplier on C3/CIII chips is locked or not (I'm guessing they followed Intel's lead & locked it), but it looks like if you want a cheap but fast system you're best bet is still an AMD chipset.

Moderator Joined: 26 May 2001 Posts: 8155 Location: Borneo

You do realise that the cyrix has a really bad floating point unit. If you run something like seti on it it would really stink but something like office would run about as fast on a cyrix as an celeron.

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2001 5:20 pm Post subject:

Quote:
You do realise that the cyrix has a really bad floating point unit. If you run something like seti on it it would really stink but something like office would run about as fast on a cyrix as an celeron.

That's exactly what I was looking for in the benchmarks, and the source of my disappointment. I run a bunch of processor-intensive applications (Photoshop 6, 3D Studio Max 4, Rhino 3D to name a few), and wanted a 'quick fix' to get them to run a bit quicker. I currently have a Celery 900 O/C'd to 1.1Ghz, but after seeing the benchmarks I would be worse of with a 933Mhz C3 even if I OC'd it. The fastest I could get a C3 to run at, if the multiplier is unlocked, would be 1.5Ghz (10 x 150). This would probably still be slower than my Celery due to the poor FLOP count. If the multiplier is locked the best I could hope for is 1.05Ghz (7 x 150).

I'm not planning on buying a PIII processor because come the January sales, I'll be getting myself an Athlon T/Bird or Athlon XP mobo & processor (bye-bye Intel finger red

).

Edited by - Robbo on 12/19/2001 20:23:30

Moderator Joined: 26 May 2001 Posts: 8155 Location: Borneo

c5 should be beter. But you have to realise that a c3 is a good option if you don't want to have a fan and dont need fp

Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2001 8:11 pm Post subject:

In otherwords, and e-mail/word processing machine.

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SJF
Heeere, kittie, kittie, kittie.
-MoRgAn

Moderator Joined: 26 May 2001 Posts: 8155 Location: Borneo

A machine to surf

Stray Dog Joined: 16 Dec 2001 Posts: 25 Location: Brazil

http://www.hotornot.com/r/?eid=S8BEGQ&key=LJC

It's fun for about an hour

Posted: Wed Dec 26, 2001 9:12 am Post subject:

Please thornapple do not spam our forums!!!!

Posted: Wed Dec 26, 2001 11:57 pm Post subject:

Ditto. I swear, I see your spam message one more time I'm gonna kick your electronic ass!

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SJF
"You say bitch like it's a bad thing."
-MoRgAn (LWD forum whore)

Toxin wrote:

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