Originally posted by: sygyzy
You guys dont know what you are talking about. the C3 800 was very popular in the Shuttle SV24 crowd because of it's low cooling requirements. I play dvd's, divx's, run Office XP, stream videos, the works and it's hooked up to my TV. For office applications and nearly anything else besides heavy gaming, it'll be fine.
Yes the C3 will do basic apps fine, especially free Linux apps. Its the Floating Point section of the processor that is so weak. You wouldn't want to try it with recent 3D games. Then again the video on this mobo is probably not up to it either.
If you need to do a lot of heavy duty image processing in your "office apps", and which may possibly use FP, this Cyrix is the going to be very slow.
No floppy drive? Very odd. I think you ought to have one. No modem? Practically everyone would like one.
I looked at the benchmarks link. Sandra must be an even more abysmal guide to true performance than I thought. (The tests are all synthetic, no functional apps.) If it were really testing the ALU, it should be about 3/4 of a Celeron/PentiumII. Sysmark Business does give numbers in that area. Business Winstone has the Cyrix and Celeron very close. These are the apps that the Cyrix is geared to. Winstone Content Creation gives about 60-70% of a Celeron.
3D Mark 2000 gives the C3 about 50% of a Celeron. Maybe it's useable on some not-too-old 3D games after all, or maybe the video on the mobo is so slow even the Celeron is choked down. We've got a Celeron and C3 identical on Quake III, but both are 24 frames per second with that video they used. You might get by. However, I believe the C3 does have 3Dnow, so if a game uses it, the C3 might be OK with decent video.
The rationale for using a Cyrix chip instead of a Celeron chip is pretty slight based on price, and maybe has more to do with getting by with a weaker power supply, poorer ventilation, and a cheaper HSF.
>800mhzC3=Celly 500 or thereabouts(value $23), mobo(pretty much useless if unable to run any other proc.. value $15)),
>128 mb pc133 memory(value $20), 10GB 5.4k harddrive(generous on this..$40), CDRom..unknown speed ..($20),
>case w/psu ..($24) Ethernet..onboard..($10) and Lindows..uhm..ummm...value $10
You didn't include a sound card, video card, keyboard, mouse and speakers.
It is expandable. Has 2 PCI and 1 ISA (great for a modem).
The CDROM is 52x.
A mobo for $15? That may be its value, but I doubt any manufacturer can deliver one for that price with on-board video and sound. If they can, where? I want to buy one.
They don't list any Celerons for less than $55 on pricewatch. Durons go as low as $26.
If this comes with an OS (Lindows?) already installed, this system may be useable as is, unlike a barebones whatever.