Pentium III Coppermines are pathetic!

[javathehut]

I bought a P3 - 667 Coppermine with 256K. At the time, the P3 - 600 w/ 512K was the same price, so I thought, get more MhZ for same $$. But was I wrong! I was using a P2 450 w/ 512K at my school lab to run a program in the CLIPS language. And it took a long time to finish, but it also beat my 667 at home!! I think that the fact that the old P2's have 512K makes them actually faster and better than some of the P3's! Intel is just trying to throw out as many P3's as possible to keep up with AMD. Thus they only offer 256K, which in my mind is PATHETIC!! the crappy celeron almost has 256 with its 128. RIght now i want to make a computer for my family member but and angered at the fact that the only CPU's offered by intel now are 256K. I think I'll just wait for the Itanium to come out, then the P3 Xeon will be cheaper. Anyone have any suggestions on what to do? THanks!

 

[awise]

What you have to remember is that the 256K of L2 cache is now on-die rather that off-die like the older P3's and P2's and that means it runs at full core speed rather than 1/2 speed which more than makes up for the size difference. You might try looking for the problem in a different component like the MB or RAM.

 

[Assimilator1]

It would seem that the CLIPS program (whatever that is! ) uses more than 256k cache to work in.For home use not many programs exceed the 256k cache ,so the greater L2 cache speed is a major benefit.
I would guess that you havent read many (if any?) reviews of the PIII coppermine vs the Katamai ,the coppermine is faster for the most part.So no way could you call the coppermines pathetic! ,they will be plenty fast enough for home use
The only program I know of personally that ran faster on a Kat then a Copp was the old SETI clients (v2.xx) ,there working set was somewhere around 600k so they ran faster on the Kats.

 

[dakost]

The old pentium iii 512Kb L2 cache processors had an L2 cache which waswere running at half the speed of the processor. So the L2 cache on a p iii 450 was running at 275 MHz. The p iii coppermines with 256Kb L2 cache have an L2 cache that runs at the processor speed. Also, the coppermine cpu's have a much better optimised L2 cache.
In the one of first tests that Anandtech did with the coppermine cpu's, in the Business Winstone 99, and all otherthings being equal, the p iii 600 coppermine with 256 L2 cache gives a value of 28.9 while the p iii 600 with 512 L2 cache gives 27. And in all other tests the coppermines are faster than the old p iii cpu's. You can read about the differences in the cpu section of the Anadtech reviews - articles.
I don't know why your program runs slower. Maybe the two machines you are comparing have a much different configuration ? Maybe the machine with the coppermine has less memory ? Maybe your program is optimised for p iii ? Maybe the operating systems are differend ?

 

[JmsAndrsn]

What motherboard you using. Your PIII 450 would be running on a 100MHZ FSB(assuming you're not overclocking). Are you actually using the PIII 667 with a 133MHZ FSB?

 

[MrGrim]

No they are not.

 

[javathehut]

The school PC is a dell, and I have no idea what the motherboard is. My system is a P3V4X 133MhZ FSB. Both have 128 PC 100 Ram. My system runs in Win2K and the school is WINNT 4 SP6. The CLIPS program runs several iterations and takes up a lot of memory. I never really read the reviews on the coppermine chipset, but based on what you guys are saying, I guess that it is faster than the older chips. I still am wondering why the school PC is faster for CLIPS, although it is something that I hardly ever use.

 

[Mikewarrior2]

Like someone above has said, this program likely uses/requires more than 256kb of L2 cache(which isn't very many programs).

IN almost all programs, clock for clock, the coppermine is a bit faster than the Katmai p3.


Mike

 

[NOS440]

Well I would bet that its your main memory performance that is killing you a dell 450 uses a BX motherboard that will kill the VIA in memory performance. It also doesn't help that your running a 133mhz FSB processor with 100mhz ram. Step up and give that processor what it deserves....some good memory !!!!!

 

[Dark4ng3l]

hmm I beleve this guy is runing his cpu at 100 mhz fsb? That would lower the clock speed hmm.

 

[EvilDonnyboy]

nah. P3V4X, and most other vias have improved memory perfomance to close to par with BX(on par with exellent P3V4X ).

upgraded drivers and bioses did have done a lot since the first reviews u've read.

 

[NOS440]

Yea right the memory performance on the apollo pro 133a is much better than older VIA chipsets but still isn't near as good as BX please !!!!!!

 

[apoppin]

The P3 Coppermines are fine. They generally beat the Katmai with twice the cache but half the speed in most applications.

What you need to do is some research. Try running some other benchmarks on both systems (and find out the configuration of your school system and if your system is optimized).

Perhaps a P4 is right for you.

 

[compuwiz1]

My PIII 700E @ 1008MHz is pathetic.

You do need to run some other benchmarks.

 

[Drifter]

hmmmm...Like to but the P2 450 w/ 512K against my P3 700@935 w/ me olde BH-6

 

[bonkers325]

no katami will kick cumine any day period
if it does intel might as well go out of bussyness

 

[thornc]

The problem might be that CLIPS language, from what I read it a language written in C by NASA...
It's now freeware and you can get it from:

A Tool for Building Expert Systems

Perhaps you should look at the program you are runnging and try to optimize it to P3 coppermine
arquitecture, it might be that the language is optimized for the katmai core....just look around...

Also as Assimilator suggests, may be you program uses more than the 256K cache of the coppermine,
perhaps you can change this and get the performace you need!!!

Good luck

 

[Assimilator1]

javathehut

Read my post

 

[Bartman39]

I`m with Compuwiz1 & Bonkers325 is my P3 pathetic??? I think not!!!

Also if you threw...say a little UT or even 3dMark2000 at it with the same video card that 667 w/133fsb would smoke the little 450 (not that its a bad cpu).





My profile says it all... (I dont even bother with the dark side...)

 

[Supradude]

my P3 550e @ 860 isn't pathetic either he he, compuwiz and bonkers know what they're talkin bout !

 

[javathehut]

Well, I think I shouldnt have went so far as to say that the Coppermines are pathetic. But I thought to myself that the lower amount of cache was the reason for this. I think that I am convinced that my P3 kicks butt! Thanks guys, I now have regained some confidence in my comp!

 

[Assimilator1]