The changes in the system specs are all positives when compared to the prior Cool K6-2 500 system, although we still would like to see support for a maximum DRAM amount of 512MB minimum. The ASUS P5A is a sharp mainboard, a clear improvement to the FIC PA-2013 that was KryoTech's previous selection, but a limited amount of system ram can cripple some of the high end functions that the Cool K6-3 500 will undoubtedly be used for.

For the gaming enthusiast or mainstream user the Cool K6-3 500 is a dream. Offering five PCI slots, multiple bus speed settings, a clear and well written instruction manual, and the stability of the ALi Aladdin V Super7 core logic set, the Kool K6-3 500 is well adapted towards it supposed "Pentium III slayer" role.

A review about a PC like this one without benchmark results would be a higher crime than if Car and Driver tested a Ferrari F50 and neglected to include its 1/4 mile time or top speed.

To fulfill our own curiosity as well as our readers' about the upper limits of the Cool K6-3 500, we tested the machine using a variety of benchmarks while equipped with fairly standard PC peripherals.

Here's how we outfitted the Cool K6-3 500:

(Remember, it comes preconfigured with just the CPU, Mainboard, and Case, everything else is up to the user.)

Test System:
AMD K6-3 400MHz CPU (overclocked to 500MHz)
ASUS P5A Super7 Mainboard (Ali Aladdin V)
Goldstar 128MB PC-133 SDRAM (Prototype)
Canopus Spectra 3200 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
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. All 3D test results were obtained by using the Quantum X-24 Voodoo2 SLI card. The X-24 was set to a speed of 95MHz for all tests. To guarantee that the video accelerator was not the limiting factor in the benchmarks, VSYNCH was turned off and a resolution of only 800 x 600 x 16bpp was utilized.