We tested the K6-3 400 with the most CPU intensive benchmarks we possess, including several from the gaming environment. For comparative reasons, we also included results on the same tests from an Intel P2-400 CPU. In order to ensure that the gaming results were limited only by CPU performance and not by the fill-rate limit of a particular video accelerator, we tested with Quantum3D's powerful X-24 Voodoo2 SLI card. All games were tested at a resolution of 800x600x16bpp to further ensure that the video accelerator wasn't the limiting factor in the testing process.
We also ran identical benchmarks both with and without 3DNow! support to show the impact that the instruction set has on the K6-3's performance.
The systems we tested on were identical save for their mainboards, which were necessarily different due to the architectures of the two CPUs. Here's a more in-depth look at the machines:
Test Systems:
MSI MS-5169 v2.2 Mainboard w/1MB L2 Cache (Socket7 - Ali Aladdin V)
ABIT BX6 v1.1 Mainboard (Slot-1 - Intel 440BX)
128MB SDRAM
Goldstar 128MB PC-100 SDRAM
STB Velocity V4400 16MB AGP 2D/3D Accelerator
Quantum3D X-24 Voodoo2 SLI PCI 3D Accelerator
Adaptec 2490UW Ultra-Wide SCSI Controller
IBM Ultrastar 9 8.4GB UWSCSI HD
Diamond Monster Sound MX300 3D PCI Sound Card
Plextor SCSI 32X CD-ROM
Win95 OSR 2.1
Test Conditions and Specifications:
All tests were run a total of three times with the results averaged to determine final score.
VSync was OFF for all video tests, allowing maximum frame rate performance.
The Quantum3D X-24 Voodoo2 SLI card was set to operate at a 100MHz core/memory speed
and was utilized for all 3D benchmark results.