1. The battle: Who's playing?

1. INTEL

After the release of the Pentium, Intel took over 90% of the computer market. The 486-computers and AMD with it drowned and no other CPU's were able to compete with Intel's Pentiums. In this way, Intel could sell its Pentiums at double price. You can buy a Pentium with several speeds ranging from 60 to 233MHz. Later Pentiums ranging from 166 to 233MHz got an MMX-extension to improve performance. Too early, because software that uses MMX wasn't ready yet. After the Pentium, Intel released the Pentium Pro, a 32-bit processor with internal L2 cache. Its performance was much higher than the Pentium with 32-bit programs, but lower with 16-bit programs. The perfect CPU for Windows NT. Now Intel tries to keep its leading position with the Pentium II, which you can buy with speeds ranging from 233 to 300MHz. At spring next year we can expect a 333 and 400MHz version of the Pentium II. The Pentium II performances are kind of a disappointment. The Pentium II, for now, does not have its own chipset. It uses the chipset of the Pentium Pro, so it cannot use SDRAM, AGP and ultra-ATA (unless you buy an extra controller). These problems will be solved by September this year, when Intel releases its new Pentium II chipset (440LX). No matter how we turn the facts, Intel still produces the fastest CPU's on the market, but at a very high price. This might change in the future, because AMD an Cyrix are back in the game, stronger than ever.

2. AMD

AMD (Advanced Micro Devices), well known of our good old 386 and 486 computers, had a very rough time when Intel's Pentium came out. Their K5 came out too late and was too slow to compete with Intel's Pentium. AMD thought smart when they bought Nexgen. They worked hard on their new processor, the K6 (based on Nexgen's technology). It must be said: the K6 is a very powerful CPU. The K6 also has the MMX-extension. Now the K6 is only available with 166, 200 and 233MHz clock speeds. In September a 266MHz version will come out and towards the end of the year a 300MHz version. In windows-applications the K6 is equivalent to the Pentium II at the same clock speed, but in DOS-applications it is slower. The K6 is much lower priced than the Pentium II, and delivers almost the same performances. The greatest news is that the K6 still fits into the socket 7. This means that you don't have to buy a new motherboard. When you upgrade your BIOS, you can just plug the K6 into your old motherboard. This is a big advantage that Intel doesn't have. If you want to use a Pentium II, you must buy a new motherboard with a 'slot one'. If AMD can finish their K6 300MHz in time, AMD could have the power to hit Intel really hard. When the K6 300MHz MMX will be armed with SDRAM, AGP and ultra-ATA, it might be just as fast as Intel's Pentium II. The battle goes on…

3. Cyrix/IBM

Cyrix has another way of making chips. They use higher bus speeds than Intel and AMD to achieve higher performances. The 6x86 (M1) wasn't very successful at all. There were a lot of heat problems and the floating-point unit was very bad. Their new CPU, the M2, has no more heat problems and has the MMX-extension. Although the floating-point unit is improved, it is still the weakest point of this CPU. Windows-applications like Word and Excel run faster with the M2 than with a Pentium at the same clock speed. This is mainly due to the higher bus speed of the M2 (75Mhz). The Pentium has a bus speed of 66Mhz. If you want to use an M2 with 75 MHz bus speed, you must have a motherboard that supports this bus speed. Older motherboards usually don't!

2. And the winner is…

There is no doubt that the winner is Intel. Intel's CPU's give high performances, no matter what you do. The minor point is the high price you pay for them. AMD and Cyrix CPU's cost less and give high performances, but they have their weak spots that Intel CPU's don't have. If you want to use your computer mainly for DOS-gaming, the K6 isn't a good choice. If you want to use it mainly for 3D or video-applications, the M2 isn't a good choice.

How can I make my Pentium 133 run faster than a Pentium 200?

1. Get enough memory and use SDRAM. A Pentium 133 with 64MB RAM will run faster than a Pentium 200 with 16MB RAM. The faster access times of SDRAM (10-12ns) will speed up your system as well.
2. Buy a motherboard with at least 512kb Pipeline Burst Cache, which supports ultra-DMA/33 and SDRAM.
3. If your motherboard supports ultra-DMA, you can use an ultra-ATA harddisk. These harddisks can transfer data at a rate of 33MB/sec. Harddisks without ultra-ATA have a maximum transfer rate of 16MB/sec. If your motherboard doesn't support ultra-DMA, you can buy a SCSI-harddisk to boost performances. These harddisks (ultra-wide) have even higher transfer rates than an ultra-ATA harddisk, but you have to buy an extra SCSI-controller to use them, which makes this option rather expensive.
4. Buy a fast videocard with a lot of memory! Many people don't realise it, but in most systems the videocard pulls down the performance of the system. Always buy a 3D videocard with at least 2MB RAM. If you have the money, go for a 3D videocard with 4MB VRAM or WRAM. VRAM and WRAM are a lot faster than other RAM.
5. If you are still not satisfied with the achieved performance, you can overclock your CPU. You can easily make your Pentium 166 run at 208 MHz or your Pentium 150 at 166MHz. When you overclock your processor, it will get much hotter as normal. YOU MUST BUY EXTRA COOLING TO KEEP YOUR OVERCLOCKED PROCESSOR AT NORMAL TEMPERATURE! To learn all about overclocking, visit:

Well, it doesn't exist yet, but soon it will! I will never buy my dream system, because I don't have the patience to wait nor the money to spend…

AMD K6 400MHz (with 100MHz bus speed)

128 MB SDRAM, 2MB L2 cache

4.5GB ultra-ATA harddisk

Matrox Millenium II 8MB WRAM

20sp CDROM and a SoundBlaster 32AWE

300W speakers

17" screen and a X2 modem

If you have any questions or if you want some advice on what you should purchase, please mail me:

mymail@dds.nl

If you want to compare the performance of the M2, K6 and Pentium II, here are some links:

The Windows 95 performance of the M2, the K6 and the Pentium II

The Windows NT performance of the M2, the K6 and the Pentium II

The DOS performance of the M2, the K6 and the Pentium II

The MMX performance of the M2, the K6 and the Pentium II

Here's the latest news:

Pentium II at 500MHz, Intel Merced at 1000MHz and AMD at 100MHz bus speed

What do you want to buy today:

How does a multimedia computer looks like?

21/07/97