SOCKET 7 CPU BENCHMARKS AND OBSERVATIONS
Last updated: 2/1/2000

Below, we present benchmarks for some popular Socket 7 CPU's; namely, the AMD 450 Mhz K6-3, 450 Mhz K6-2, 400 Mhz K6-2, and the VIA Cyrix 300 Mhz M2-433GP.    Based on Winstone 99 testing by NSTL (National Software Testing Laboratories Inc.),  VIA rates the 290 Mhz M2-400GP chip's general performance to be a little faster than a 400 Mhz Celeron and a little slower than a 400 Mhz K6-2.  They don't compare the 300 Mhz M2-433GP chip to a K6-2 because there is no 433 Mhz K6-2.  I did.  The M2 is little faster in some respects than a 400 Mhz K6-2 and quite a bit slower in others.  The Business Winstone 99 performance of the two chips is almost identical; but, like all Cyrix chips I've seen, it has a noticeably weak Floating Point Unit.  So, if you are the average business user, you shouldn't see any noticeable difference between the 400 Mhz K6-2 and the 300 Mhz M2-433GP.  If you play games, run a software music synthesizer, or do other tasks involving intensive number-crunching, the K6-2 will beat the M2 coming and going.

Some observations...

• The M2 runs noticeably cooler than any of the K6 processors (see below).  After all, it is clocked slower.

• The K6-3 beats all of the other processors hands down.  Unfortunately, the K6-3 is being discontinued (or being renamed/revamped to become the K6-2+).  As I understand it, AMD wants to emphasize the K7 or Athlon and the K6-3 did not catch-on as competitor with the Intel P3.  (I'll bet 'cha there is a Socket 370 CPU in the works somewhere; especially since VIA is about to release a socket 370 CPU, code named Joshua.)

• If you scoot down towards the bottom of this page you'll see that the WinTune 98 Floating Point benchmark on the 450 Mhz K6-2 beats the 450 Mhz K6-3???  The test was run three times.

• My testing shows that all of these chips, when used with Epox Super7 motherboards, make excellent Windows NT 4.0 workgroup file servers.

The prices  I've seen on the M2's and K6-2's (currently a $14 difference between the most expensive, the M2-433GP, and the least expensive, the 400 Mhz K6-2) definitely make the 450 Mhz K6-2 a better buy (performance/cost) than either the 400 Mhz K6-2 or M2-433GP.  I plan to benchmark a 500 Mhz K6-2 before too long (after the price drops to where the 450 is now).

Larry

WinBench 99 v. 1.1; WinStone 99 v. 1.2

Test Computer: Processors as shown, Epox MVP3G motherboard, 1 MB cache', 64 MB, 8 ns PC100 memory, Maxtor 9084U2 8.4 GByte, 5,400 RPM ATA/66/33 hard disk, Windows 98 with FAT32 file system (defragged), Liteon 44X CD-ROM, AOpen T9750 AGP Display Adapter with 4 MB.

NSTL BUSINESS WINSTONE 99 TEST RESULTS

NSTL test computer configurations

WinStone and WinBench are registered trademarks or trademarks of Ziff-Davis Inc. in the U.S. and other countries.