Overclocking oldies but goldies

[DavidMMM]

I will start with a very old platform - socket 7 - but a long-life platform, maybe one of the longest:

a) below is k6 III 400@475 MHz, 250nm on a Soyo 5EHM+ 1MB L2 cahe MVP3 motherboard, usually these CPU can cope with maximum 450 MHz at stock voltage + 0.1V;
b) the 256 kb L2 cache inside the CPU are more important than the frequency, the additional performance compared to simple k6-2 - clock per clock - is around 20%, a k6 III at 450 MHz is movind better than a k6-2 at 600 MHz;
c) it is the last time Intel made the "mistake" they will never repeat: they licensed the socket to AMD, and it is well known what happened later, Pentium1 MMX stopped to 233MHZ - followed by Penium II, and AMD reached with K6-2 si k6-2+ frequencies of 600 MHz (official k6-2 570 MHz k6-2 and 550MHz for k6-2+) - competing with Intel's Pentium II, but 600MHz is an usual frequency for good super socket 7 motherboards with FSB > 100 MHz and K6-2+, k6-3+;
d) the multiplier is unlocked, and from k6-2 CXT - chomper, the AMD CPUs are considering the 2x multiplier - 6x;

[drmrlordx]

Dude, old school. I never had a K6-III, but I did have a loaner K6-II 350 after getting rid of my K6-233. Had an ATI Rage Fury Maxx ugh.

[DavidMMM]

below is a k6-2+ 500 MHz@600 MHz with 128 kb L2 cache manufactured with an 180nm technology (k6-2 was manufactured with an 250 nm technology), on a VIA MVP3 512 kb cache DFI K6XV3+/66 motherboard.

[Lightman]

Very nice OC!
I had K6-2 450 oc to 570MHz on Ali Alladin V board.
Played with K6-3 400MHz but it was resilient to OC as I had early model. Only 450MHz was stable on it and getting 500MHz was impossible even with cold water.

Any older Cinebench results on these babies?

[AlleyViper]

below is a k6-2+ 500 MHz@600 MHz with 128 kb L2 cache manufactured with an 180nm technology (k6-2 was manufactured with an 250 nm technology), on a VIA MVP3 512 kb cache DFI K6XV3+/66 motherboard.

Depending on benchmark, sometimes the 5.5x multiplier can be faster than the undocumented 6x -- IIRC, memory performance is better, which is great if you have good bus options above 100MHz (I don't). If you look at the k6plus forums, you'll find some info on that.
I haven't booted my SS7 machine for some years, it has a K6-III+ 500 ANZ @600MHz/2.0V on a modest Shuttle HOT-591P (MVP3 with 512KB L3) REV.2.0 with 2x256MB @100MHz/CL2-2-2-5 that fortunately has no problem with .18 parts with latest bios. This system has also a GF2 GTS and a good old AWE64. Last time it booted after a long rest, it threw some bluescreens and I had no time to investigate. Probably a busted PSU, since MB caps look fine.
Currently out of use is the previous K6-2+ 550 ACZ, also reaches 6x100MHz/2.0V primestable. On the pile there's also a rare .25 mobile K6-III-P/380AFK, but it can't do more than 430MHz. The other couple of K6-2s aren't worth to mention.

[DavidMMM]

furthermore below is a k6-2+ 500 MHz@605 MHz with 128 kb L2 cache, on a Ali AlladinV Gigabyte GA5AX with 512 kb cache L2, which cannot be shown by CPUZ / I will try my k6-3+ on the Epox MVP3 G2, FIC PA2013 mobos, after I will update their BIOSes/ I will try to resuscitate the dinosaur: dual Pentium Siemens Nixdorf Primergy - with 256MB of RAM.

[AlleyViper]

Cool stuff, thanks for sharing! That's one of the best cards still compatible with an AGP 1.0 3.3V slot (at 2x). Depending on bench, with a L2 cache enabled CPU such as K6-2+ or K6-III/+ sometimes it performs faster if you disable the onboard cache that is now working as L3. For general use, it's better to leave it enabled, of course.
IIRC Memory bandwith is much lower on MVP3 than on Ali, unfortunately.

[DavidMMM]

3d mark2001 on a super socket 7 system: k6-2+ 500@570MHz and SOYO 5EHM+ VIA MVP3 1MB L3 cache together with a Hercules ATI Radeon 9700 Pro AGP8x/4x:

[DavidMMM]

a) a benchmark 3d mark2001 on a super socket 7 system: k6-3+ 450@575MHz=5x115MHz, with motherboard Gigabyte GA-5AX rev.4.1 512 kB L3 cache and videocard Asus nVidia 5900 AGP8x/4x:
b) the K6-3+ is a little unstable at 600MHz, probably a little more voltage will help;
c) I have updated the BIOS-es for k6-2+/k6-3+ support for Epox MVP3 G2 (1 MB L2), FIC PA2013 rev.2 and GA- 5AX rev. 5.2, I will play with them when I will have time.

[drmrlordx]

Wow, it's been awhile since I heard about Aladdin chipsets. I remember looking hard at some of their stuff in '97 when putting together a k6-233 system.

[AlleyViper]

Took the dust off the MVP3 based K6-III+ mentioned above, upgraded the lousy PSU to a good old Enermax 465AX FMA and ran a few benchmarks. The reason it was spitting BSODs the last time I've tried it wasn't the PSU, but some incompatibility with a NEC based 4 port USB 2.0 PCI card. The 3DM2001SE score is even lower, as it's a DX7 card that skips test 4. Back In the day, I remember my 1333 tbird with a slower GF2 MX doing a much better score (~2.5K maybe).

I have a GF4 ti4200 X8 collecting dust, but unfortunately the original fan was faulty, so the cooler was replaced by a mammoth passive solution from TT many years ago. Because of that, it's unlikely to fit in the current baby ATX build (mostly because of MB layout) -- edit: just checked, the card won't even fit with the original cooler because a cap hits the CPU cooler. So, a passive HP OEM GF2 GTS 32MB @AGP 2x was used stock in the bench bellow. Even a lousy FX5200 64bit was reaching near 2000pts (2DK1) in this K6-III+ setup some years ago. It seems I'm stuck with cards without any tall components just a bit after the AGP slot.

[JAWS]

I enjoy old school overclocking more than the new. Thanks for the screen shots!!!

I've been messing around with an Asus SK8V and FX-51. I never could afford FX-51 back in the day so I bought one off ebay a couple months ago. so I finally can say I own one. Also found a DFI Infinity NF Ultra II.

[AlleyViper]

Uau! The original 940 and a FX-51, that was a monster back in his day. At the time (early 04') I was running a 754 3200+ ClawHammer (early rev. C0 too) on a Abit KV8-MAX3, but the K8T800 was a pita for two reasons, no AGP/PCI lock and unstable with TRCD2. nf3 250Gb later was godsent.

[DavidMMM]

managed to bring the k6-3+ to 605MHz on the good old GA-5AX rev.4.1, on the same nVidia 5900, just for comparison:

[AlleyViper]

Thanks for sharing, those are some really nice results. Btw, I've noticed that CPU-Z will fail to show the onboard cache (L3) when multiple instances are open on my system (after the first).

[DavidMMM]

CPUZ fails to show motherboard's L3 cache on ALi chip based SS7 motherboards, on all I have, with different kind of revisions, even if with the new ones. This does not apply to the VIA chip based motherboards.

[AlleyViper]

On my MVP3 it'll only fail for every instance opened after the first one. I've actually had to repeat one benchmark when I've posted the screens above, because I failed to notice it before closing programs.

[eXa]

Cool. I had a K6-2 400mhz back in the days. Made a cardboard shroud and put a 80mm fan on the cooler. Didnt really know what i was doing, but fiddled with some jumpers on the motherboard and managed to clock it to 450mhz.