Upgrade AMD K6/2-350 to a 500?

[johnk]

A co-worker has asked if it would be worth it to upgrade his system from a 350 to a 500 AMD K6/2. He has 192 MB of RAM and uses it for sword-fight type games on the Internet through cable. Will the CPU upgrade make much of a difference for this type of game play or should he instead save his money for a later generation of an AMD CPU-based system? Thanks.

 

[Vyle]

DURON. I went from a K6-2 333 to K6-2 500 and hell if I could see the difference. Sure, he could try to see if a K62+ or K6III+ will work in his machine, but why prolong the inevitable. Duron is the way to go. It will give him a tremendous boost. I just ditched my K6-2 500 for a Duron 700 yesterday!

 

[Buddha Bart]

The difference will probably be quite slight.
You may want to try a fresh install of windows, sometimes that does wonders.
As for the duron reccomendations you're going to be bombarded with, keep in mind they will almost always require a new case/powersupply, and new ram.

bart

 

[LongTimePCUser]

You should get a significant increase in speed for very little money and very little effort.

If you go to a Duron you will have to replace the mother board. Since the existing mother board is probably an AT and all the new boards are ATX, this will also mean a new case. This will get you a much faster system but it also means a much more complex upgrade process.

 

[sumix]

Get a K6-2 450+ or475+ if your mother board can handle it. I had a K6-2 350 and went to a 475+@622 and am happy as hell. It was the best fifty bucks I ever spent. Tiger Direct has 450+ and 475+. I will be getting a Duron in a few months.

 

[yodayoda]

he has too much memory in his system. i was reading that k6-2 systems should not have more than 128 mb of RAM--they see a performance drain because the memory addressing is not very good on that chip.

 

[Rand]

You won't see a huge performance boost b/c the K6-2 is severly bandwidth limited at clockspeeds above 400MHz or so, but considering the cost of the K6-2 500MHz I'd say go for it.
Their so cheap now that he might as well go for it, and use that to tide him over till' he has enough for a Duron+Mobo.
Another option is the K6-2+ which would yield a significantly larger performance boost but also at a higher price, and you would have to check if his mobo could accept a '+' series K6-2.

 

[Rand]

yodayoda, I've ran a K6-2 with over 320MB of RAM and seen low-end servers with 1 GB of RAM built around the K6-2. I don't know where you heard that but the addressable memory for the K6-2 is far beyond 128MB. As long as the OS can handle the larger amounts of RAM the K6-2 can handle it perfectly fine.

 

[Vyle]

He can try and see if one of the mobile AMD K6+ chips will work in his mobo. Good luck. I still say Duron is the way to go. Yes, you'll need a new case and mobo but the difference is night and day. Speaking from experience, your friend is going to be shocked at how little difference there is going from a 350 to 500.

 

[TheGreatDane]

I'd say go for it - I just went from a K6-2/350 to a K6-2+/500, which runs at 550 with no problems at all. With a little burning in it will hit 600 in some days...I felt the boost quite significantly - and would definitely recommend it - it's a cheap upgrade.

What really matters is that your friend gets a plus (+) model, which are quite faster because of the L2-cache. If it is just a K6-2 he wants to upgrade to, I wouldn't recommend it. Alternatively go for a K6-3+, but remember that these are more expensive and harder to get.

Some things worth considering:

1) Make sure that the Mobo supports the plus models. Otherwise the upgrade gets more difficult as you need small progs to detect all the features of these models.

2) It is not true, that you can't have more than 128 mb of RAM. This is completely non sense! (I'm running with 256 and yes I did notice a boost from the 128).

3) Make your friend consider a new video card as well (though I don't know what he has at the moment). This will really make the upgrade complete and he can always bring this new card to a later system. Remember though, that Geforce owneers have experienced great difficulties with their cards on ALI-chipsets. I bought the Voodoo4 4500 PCI(because I don't have an AGP port) and like it a lot - the fact that the CPU is not the newest and fastest in the world does not matter as much to the 3dfx cards as to Geforce cards. The Voodoos simply run great with smaller cpu's!

Your friend can find more information here:

http://members.tripod.co.uk/gazro/overclocking_the_k62_k63_links.htm

Hope this helps.

K6 ROCKS

 

[Avatar26]

I wouldn't bother, honestly. The performance difference is still going to be negligible...

 

[johnk]

Thanks for all your input. I printed out the responses for my co-worker. He was very impressed and plans to join the Anand forums for himself as a result. Unless he can really beat them down on the price for the 500, he will probably start saving for a better system instead.

 

[sumix]

About the amount of memory. It has to do with the amount of level 2 cache on the MB. 512k of onboard level 2 cache allows up to 128 meg. of memory. 1 meg of onboard level 2 cache enables 256 meg. 2 meg enables 512 meg.

 

[RobsTV]

I to would go with the K6-2+ 450 from Tiger for $34.99.
An example of the improvement he will see would be better than what I saw going from a K6-2 @ 392Mhz to a K6-III @ 488MHz, both non-plus versions.

With K6-2@392,
Nascar 4 scored a whopping 5fps, with everything turned down to lowest quality, highest performance, using either a 3dfx V3 3K, or a GF2 MX.

Switching to the K6-III@448, and same tests score around 24fps.
I would say that IS a noticable speed increase.

The advantage of using the K6-2+ is it's built using .18. All of us Duron owners know how great .18 overclocks, and this is in the same class. Most of these 450's easily run at 600MHz, so the test results posted above with a K6-III @ 448, would be much higher still.

As to the Duron upgrade. MONEY.
Most K6 owners have AT case, AT motherboard, K6 CPU, 2+ year old video cards, and probably a few ISA cards, as well as PC66 or PC100 memory. Even without buying memory or a video card, the cheapest you could upgrade to Duron components is around $300 shipped (including ISA cards, as 1 ISA slot if you are lucky with socketA). Without good memory, and a great video card, performance is not all that great. For example, my Duron 600@935 using 3DMark 2000, scored around 3000 with the Voodoo3 card, 5400 with a GF2 MX card, and 7300 with a GF2 GTS card. There are many K6-2+ users getting 3200 3dmarks.

I should be receiving a K6-2 450+ to upgrade the wifes K6-III 400 in about another day or 2, and will post how well it performs.

 

[Vyle]

<< As to the Duron upgrade. MONEY. Most K6 owners have AT case, AT motherboard, K6 CPU, 2+ year old video cards, and probably a few ISA cards, as well as PC66 or PC100 memory. >>



I have an ATX case/power supply with my K6-2 500 and PC-100 memory. You can use that same memory in a Duron system and the memory bandwith between a K6-2 and Duron is incredible. If you're not prepared to spend some money, find another hobby.

 

[RobsTV]

If PC's are a hobby, then you will always try to have the latest stuff.
It is my hobby, as I now have 2 Durons and am a member of the 1GHz club.
Upgrades of one type or another are required every 60 days to truely enjoy this hobby.

For most though, it is not a hobby, and many just want enough to get by at the cheapest price.
An example of this is the K6-2 350 system I just sold. It is a decent starter system for the non-hobbiest out there.