Benchmarks

1. Full Results
2. Comparision Chart
3. K6-III vs K6-2
4. System BIOS Cacheable - Any Difference?
5. Test BIOS vs BIOS v2.8
6. Write Allocation
7. The K6-III 400 - Another 33MHz
8. The Configuration

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1. Full Results

I did some benchmarking of the K6-III and K6-2, with various cache and BIOS settings, to determine if there were any differences in performance. I used ZD's Winstone 98 to do this and ran the Business Winstone suite. After each test, I defragged the hard disk and rebooted the system, so that each test would have an equal starting point.

Here are the full results :-

Note :
WA = Write Allocation
SysBiosCache = System BIOS Cacheable

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2. Comparision Chart

Using the Business Winstone results column, I generated this chart :-

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3. K6-III vs K6-2

To compare the K6-III with the K6-2, I downclocked the K6-III to 366MHz. The K6-III achieved a score of 23.1 and the K6-2 got 19.5. This is a 18.5% improvement in performance. AMD's Tri-Level Cache architecture really rocks!

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4. System BIOS Cacheable - Any Difference?

Since the K6-III must have the System BIOS Cacheable setting DISABLED, I wanted to determine if this has any impact on performance. To do this, I used the K6-2 and tested it with the setting ENABLED (19.5) and DISABLED (19.4). The results speak for themselves; there is a negligible performance impact with the System BIOS Cacheable DISABLED.

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5. Test BIOS vs BIOS v2.8

It occurred to me that K6-III may be able to function with BIOS v2.8, so I tested it. With the System BIOS Cacheable setting DISABLED, it worked. However, the BIOS detected the CPU wrongly as a K6-366, and did not activate Write Allocation. This is not a problem since Write Allocation can be easily enabled with the SETK6V3 utility. I used this command in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file; SETK6D /ON:64M.

From the benchmarking results, it can be seen that, all else being equal, there is virtually no difference in performance between the Test BIOS (23.1) and the BIOS v2.8 (23.2).

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6. Write Allocation

For complete-ness, I also benchmarked the K6-III with Write Allocation ON (23.2) and OFF (21.7). There is a 6.9% performance increase with Write Allocation ON.

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7. K6-III 400 - Another 33MHz

I benchmarked the K6-III at its fullest rated speed by clocking it at 400MHz. This required a clock multiplier of 6. To get this, I removed the BF2 rework and set SW1 = ON and SW2 = OFF. It showed a small 3% performance increase over the K6-III 366Mhz. Perhaps the other system components or even the GA-586HX are the limiting factors.

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8. The Configuration

My test system configuration is as follows :-

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Disclaimer

Adrian
Last revised: April 19, 2000.