300 MHz club, part II
eveloped jointly by AMD, Cyrix and Integrated Device Technology (IDT manufactures
Socket 7 WinChip processors). It will be supported by Microsoft's DirectX 6.0, which will be
in NT 5.0 and a Windows 98 service release. We'll review a K6 3D demonstration system in
the near future.
Cyrix, meanwhile, seems to have acknowledged that its motherboard requirements hampered
acceptance of its Socket 7 chips. Although the AMD K6, IDT WinChip and Intel MMX
Pentium processors all operate in 66MHz motherboards, Cyrix had required 75MHz and even
83MHz motherboards-seriously reducing the pool of available motherboards and
necessitating the use of non-Intel chipsets.
To solve the problem, Cyrix relaunched the 6x86MX as the M II-300, the processor used in
the CyberMax system reviewed here. The M II-300 operates in a standard 66MHz
motherboard with any Intel or compatible chipset and uses a 3.5 clock multiplier. That results
in an actual clock speed of 233MHz, up from 208MHz for the previous version (83MHz with a
2.5 multiplier).
Cyrix uses a Power Rating (PR) for its chips, because its larger level 1 caches and efficient
design achieve application performances that are better than the clock speed alone would
indicate. A PR300 Cyrix chip, therefore, should offer roughly the application performance of a
300MHz Intel processor, much faster than its CPU performance in MIPS shows.
The two systems tested here use the new SiS 5591 chipset to enable AGP video, so another
of the differentiating factors Intel claimed for its Slot One motherboards compared to Socket 7
designs falls by the wayside.
Polywell Poly K6300MX
The Polywell Poly K6300MX is a basic PC with some higher-end configuration features. Built
around the new AMD 300MHz K6 CPU, it comes with 64MB of RAM (expandable to
384MB) and a whopping 8.4GB hard drive. Throw in a high-end Diamond Viper V330
AGP/ATX graphics card with 4MB of SGRAM and you can tell there are no cut corners here,
despite the mid-tower case's vanilla exterior.
Many of this PC's other details also have an ordinary look, but are better than the norm. The
Keytronics keyboard, with its soft feel and lots of travel to the keys, is comfortable for touch
typing. The KYE Genius NetMouse is also comfortable and easy to use; its middle button is
actually a rocker switch that operates like the wheel on a Microsoft IntelliMouse. The
CD-ROM is a 32X Toshiba, and the sound system comprises a good Yamaha 719 wavetable
sound card with 3D sound and Altec Lansing ACS45 speakers with subwoofer. The system |
