k6-2 or pentium 2

[gtd2000]

I forgot to say I was using a TNT card on my K6-2 system

 

[novice]

Some very good observations here. The best one being that it could not be a choice between the two, unless he was replacing the motherboard. And IF he is replacing the motherboard, there are many better options than either the K6-2 or the Pentium II. The Celeron 2 and Duron immediately spring to mind. (And I like the Celeron 2, so there! ) So given that he was upgrading a super socket seven motherboard, the K6-2 was his best option given the restriction of his motherboard. I am surprised that he is still having performance issues with games with his K6-2 500 and Voodoo 3. The question of system ram is a good one. I had an IBM Aptiva with a K6-2 333 and a Voodoo 2 to supplement the onboard video and it worked pretty well. But then, I had 96 MB of ram. That probably helped some. (It came with 48) If your friend is still running 64 (or worse, 32) then a ram upgrade should be next on his agenda. And with prices as low as they are right now, he should be able to pick up a 64 MB DIMM for around $25 or so. Mushkin is currently offering their basic PC-133 128 MB DIMM for $45 with free shipping (2 day Fed Ex) Good Luck,
Chuck

 

[Tzen]

The manual says the maximum RAM ammount is 64MB, which is what I've got, BUT I've heard that it's only the max cacheable ammount and it can actually take up to 256MB. Also, the .pdf motherboard manual says it can take 256MB. Not sure what all that means but that's what I've heard. Yes, I am planning on using a K6-2 which that will re-map the 2x multiplier to 6x. Anyone know how much it will help if I put in more than 64MB RAM? Also, I need a program that will tell me more about my RAM. It was put in a couple years ago by someone else so I know nothing about it. It's most likely 66MHz, but that's all I know.

Tzen

 

[gtd2000]

Tell me what the chipset is?

 

[BFG10K]

The Pentium 2 will slap the K6 silly in every department, especially in 3D games.

 

[Priit]

Little more about P2 vs. K6-x: Yeah, P2 is faster than K6 Mhz vs. Mhz in 90% (maybe even more) of benchmarks cause it's superior pipelined FPU, better chipsets and fast L2 cache. K6 with on-die L2 (2+,3,3+) improves performance by ~25% over cacheless version, making K6 perform roughly same as celerons. There's still a few areas where K6 (especially versions with on-die L2) run very well: those are places where FPU doesn't matter and integer performance is requied. Do you know that K6-3 is faster in Mhz vs. Mhz running database applications than P3? Pointing to Aceshardware, K6 has the best branch predictor in x86 processors history. It's pure integer-crunching power is better than any other more modern CPU.

Don't want to start flame here, but in some areas P4 reminds me K6-2 when it came out: sub-pair FPU and new SIMD instruction making it perform very well in some (rare) benchmarks.