Cover story #2 on WINDOWS MAG 11/97: CHIP SHOOTOUT! Is Intel really better than AMD & Cyrix? Subtitle of article is "Intel is no longer undisputed champ." It compared WIN95 performance using K6, Intel P55C, Cyrix 6x86mx and a Dell Pentium II-233 system with and without AGP. Under Windows NT, comparison is not made with Pentium II, since no video drivers are available for the STB Nitro 3D PCI card. For AGP, they used a completely different STB card, the Velocity AGP, which, IMO, competely invalidates the video comparison. Otherwise, they did a good job using various motherboards, etc.
There are zillions of charts in the article but I'll just show the TOTAL SCORE and then quote the conclusions:
TOTAL SCORE (Win95) higher is better (WinNT)
K6____________6.47___________________6.59
Cyrix___________6.45___________________6.41
P55C__________6.11___________________6.22
Conclusions
-----------
"AMD likes to position it K6 processor as direct Pentium II competior, but at 233 MHz, its performatnce on most tests fell squarely between the P55C and the PII. Still, it offered well-rounded performance at a variety of tasks and with its upcoming 266 MHz and 300 MHz versions, it will indeeed provide a cheaper Socket 7 alternative to Intel;s high-priced, Slot 1 Pentium II powerhouses.
Cyrix's 6X86MX was an outstanding performer at ordinary business applications. It also performed acceptably on multimedia and computational tasks such as high-end graphics...
Intel's P55C, on the other hand, is the slowest of the Socket 7 chips on typical business tasks, but the best of the bunch on multimedia and high-end graphics.
The PII excels in every area, though its business-application performance was basically matched by the 6x86MX. [PS, 75 MHz mus speeds up disk-intensive tasks.]
THE WINNER IS...
The overall performance of the three Socket 7 processors is so evenly matched that you wouldn't notice a performance difference among them. Though each has its particular strengths, none stands out so dramatically from the others. The PII is faster in most areas, but not fast enough to justify paying a major premium to attain the extra perforrmance, especially for business apps."
The article then goes on to point out the average $600 to $1500 price difference between Pentium II systems and K6/Cyrix.
Nothing really new here, just continued affirmation that you don't get your money's worth with Intel.
Petz |
