Question: What's the difference (k6-2 or K63)?

[wenDigo]

Hey there,

Due to the recent release of k6-2 550, and the static sale price of the k63 450, I was wondering what's the big difference between these two proccessors other than the amount of L2 cache provided? I guess the bottom line is, which one will give me a few more FPS' in games such as Q3A and Unreal Tournie'?

[G7]

Hi
you can look at about an 5fps increase when using a K6-III over an similarly clocked and specced system with a K6-II.

The business application performance should also be quite more speedy with the III.

This is not due to the L2 cache size actually but the fact that the K6-III has a 3 level cache desighn.
L1 the same as K6-II i believe 64Kb
L2 is an on die 256Kb with the III (i think running at full core speed) - this is something the II does not have at all.
Further the II has a L2 cache of normally 512Kb on the motherboard running at the Front Side Bus speed.
For the K6-III this is the L3 cache.

Which means that the bottlenech of a say 450/100 combo that is 450Mhz CPU with 100Mhz FSB is really widened by that cache implementation.

Now what you must look at is the fps of a 550Mhz K6-II and the FPS of a 450Mhz K6-II.
Add +- 5fps to the latter score and compare.
The 550Mhz would most likely come out on top since 100Mhz on 450Mhz is quite an increase.
However i think it would be quite close.

But ten again buy a 450K6-III and overclock it - and since the K6-III production has supposedly been halted due to a too little demand i would say grab one while it is stil around - i think it is a nice buy.

Hope this helps

[wenDigo]

Yeah, it does actually

Thanks for the reply.

[Walrus Bonzo]

Overclock an AMD K6-3 450MHz.

What a joke.
It doesn't matter what I do, I can't overclock mine.

I have an ASUS P5A mobo if anyone is interested in helping?

[G7]

Do not ask me i have not done it before.
But let me reply.

Since the K6-III has the cache on die it requires quite a bit more power and since you can not do anything to the amps you are left with one choice.
P=IV
up the voltage.
I do not know exactly how much you need to up it but as far as i know +50Mhz needed a VCore increment last time i checked.

Try it
Remember that it could also be due to silicon yield.
And burn it in for a while maybe that helps

[MegaManX4]

Hi, overclocking a 450 K6-3 is indeed possible. I overclocked my 400'er first to 450MHz without upping the Core Voltage from 2,2.
But to go higher I needed to up the Voltage to 2,8V! So now it runs stable at 500MHz.

Mega

[Himself]

Be sure to monitor the temperature when you overclock the K6-3, and use programs like Rain/Waterfall/CpuIdle when running 24/7.

Using waterfall, my cpu is generally at 30C, without it it goes to 40C.

[hella356]

The K6-3 is much more responsive with any program you run. Gaming performance varies a lot from game to game, but the K6-3 is just overall much better. I haven't tried a K6-2 550, but the K6-2s don't scale too well due to the L2 cache remaining 100MHz on the mobo. The integer intensive programs are night and day different if that matters to you.