AMD vs Cyrix

[pqwabbit]

I was just wondering what are the differences betwen the 2 processors and do people have apreference for one over the other? Right now we have this absolutely wonderful Cyrix 586 mediaGX 133 (which runs at 150! http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif) it rns just as well (if not better than) our mom's P-200. well evenutally of course we'll be upgrading - way downthe road - and will definatley be going with a non-intel product Just looking for feedback - we've heard good things about AMD but never used one.
thanx
Lea

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Bunnies make life better.
Massachusetts House Rabbit Society, Inc.
http://www.MAHouseRabbit.org/

[Del]

AMD seems to be a pretty good chip. I plan on using AMD when I get to building the new box we need (in a month or so I hope).

I've seen nothing but garbage when tinkering with Cyrix chips, and have heard some really really low comments about Cyrix. When I asked him about his opinion of Cyrix, a guy at CompUSA made a really scary face and said he had no opinion. The other guy looked like he was going to hurl at the mention of the word Cyrix. I dunno, maybe just coincedence.

Go for the AMD, being stuck with a Cyrix isn't worth the money you'd save.

Del
(this has all been Del's opinion, which is known to have been weird/bizarre/wrong at times)

[Charles Capps]

I made the mistake of getting a Cyrix system two years ago, and it was nothing but trouble - it was constantly overheating. Performance didn't match what was claimed, and, in general, I was not satisfied at all. I promptly replaced the chip itself with a genuine Pentium, and things got much, much better. No more overheating-caused crashes, and no more LOUD, annoying fan!

If you're going non-Intel, get AMD.

(Right now I'm on the bleeding edge - Celeron 300 overclocked to 450 http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif)

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"Okay, so I'm not "SANE" so to speak, but uh... I'm the lovable kind of psycho"
http://solareclipse.net/

[This message has been edited by Charles Capps (edited 03-25-99).]

[Armand]

Have a AMD personally and it rocks for me. No experience with Cyrix but AMD kills pentiums for sure.

[pqwabbit]

hmmmm well this is exactly why I asked cuz I havent heard much abour cyrix lately but have heard alot obout AMD - this is interesting cuz my 2 yr old Cyrix has been just wonderful no problems - and im alwasy disappointed when I m using mom's Pentium 200 (like now - phooey!) - What about 3D Now? Does it handle 3D much better than other chips? That;'s one place my Cyrix sucked - I downloadeda trial 3D text program -but it ran like crap.

Lea


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Bunnies make life better.
Massachusetts House Rabbit Society, Inc.
http://www.MAHouseRabbit.org/

[Bi4Be]

Ummm.... I actually don't have any advice, help, or oppinions. I've used Pentiums all my life.

Anyways, now that we're talking processor speed I just wanted to brag. I bought a brand spankin' new computer in November. A Pentium II at 450 Mhz. http://www.aota.net/ubb/biggrin.gif

-Bi4Be

PS: For those of you w/ slower chips, living at high speed isn't exactly "livin' the high life." I've already gotten used to these speeds and way too spoiled with it, I absolutely cannot stand --or have the patience -- to work with my old 133 Mhz laptop. By the way, sorry for drifting on to a whole 'nother sub topic! http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

[Justin]

I have always hated Cyrix, as they are very slow and unstable. I've seen them lock up for no reason whatsoever.

AMD is the way to go. Speed for speed, the prices are just so much lower - and I think they are at least as good as a Pentium, if not better.

I've had this K6-233 MMX for almost a year now, and have yet to experience a problem. I will be upgrading very soon though, probably to a K6-2 450 3DNow chip. But price is only part of the reason...

I will NEVER buy a Pentium III - EVER. I do not want my computer branded with a processor serial number, and I'm all for the Intel boycott http://www.aota.net/ubb/biggrin.gif AMD says they never plan to do anything similar to their chips http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

But besides that, a friend of mine has a P-233 MMX - his system is identical to mine in every respect except for the chip. Mine blows his away hands down. His has a bug where it does not want to boot up all the time - he has to push 'Reset' a few times before it will successfully boot up. I have never had this problem (I think it's a documented bug in the early Intel MMX chips). Then there's the invalid instruction bug...

Either way, you won't find anything but AMD in any of my boxes http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

My 2 cents http://www.aota.net/ubb/biggrin.gif

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Justin Nelson
FutureQuest Tech Support

[Terra]

I will try to not deviate too far... I am a Cyrix chip user, and have only had excellent service from the 6x86 166 CPU that I run in the Win98 system I'm typing this from... Deb has got the P-II 400, but I still haven't upgraded my system yet... http://www.aota.net/ubb/frown.gif

General outlay of our work systems at home:
Terra:Win98:Cyrix 6x86 166, 96Mb Ram
Spunky:Linux:Cyrix 6x86 150, 64Mb Ram
JKily:NT4:AMD 486dx4/120, 24Mb Ram (yes, it does run)
Deb:Win98:P-II 400, 192Mb Ram

So you can see, we run a mixed bag of architectures... It keeps me up to date of all the quirks that each may have - and a problem that the AMD is having - may help me solve a problem on the P-II system...

Of all our internal systems, Deb's has got to be the most problematic one... Mine is pretty much stable, and the NT and Linux box are rock-solid...

You can draw your own conclusions from this, but it has shown that it's not always the choice of hardware - but the OS and mixed bag of software that you toss on top of it...

--
Terra
--Just my 2 cents on the CPU Wars--
FutureQuest

PS: I'm drooooooling for the AMD K-7!!!! (.18 micron only)

[Benson]

Deb:Win98:P-II 400, 192Mb Ram

GO girl!

I too am waiting for the K7 to replace my Pentium 100 (ack! with no secondary cache yet)

A K7, hi-speed bus, 8mb video ram, jumbo cache - I want it.

A Plentyum 3 is probably not in my future due to the processor ID number and a dislike for Intel's marketing strategy.

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Highlands & Hebrides in '99

[pqwabbit]

JKily is still around eh? Hmm maybe he/she was alwasy so crotchity in chat cuz it wants an upgrade -"No one is playing popups and having fun until I get a few extra megs thrown my way!" :Þ

WHile we're onythe subject what's the differnces between a regular pentium and a celeron? any better? worse?
dont gotta clue

Lea


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Bunnies make life better.
Massachusetts House Rabbit Society, Inc.
http://www.MAHouseRabbit.org/

[Benson]

The celeron is marketed as a budget Pentium. They had a bad rap at first, but I understand that the latest incarnation is pretty fast and OK. I believe the competition from the AMD K6 can be thanked for this.

[Armand]

Early Celeron problem was a lack of decent bus speed thing mainly at least for me.

[Charles Capps]

And the A series Celerons have a very nice on-chip-like cache that just LOVES to be overclocked... Perfect for those of us that need speed and don't mind the risks. http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

BTW, about 3DNOW - I'm not sure what apps really support it...

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"Okay, so I'm not "SANE" so to speak, but uh... I'm the lovable kind of psycho"
http://solareclipse.net/

[Justin]

Anything supporting Microsoft's DirectX and Direct Draw supports 3DNow - DirectX itself (6.0 and up) has native support for it. They generally make DirectX able to take advantage of any new hardware available - even if it's not Intel (I remember wondering why one would pay more for MMX a while back, thinking noone would support it http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif)

So all of your 3D dos games (Quake II, Doom, Tomb Raider, etc) will use the 3DNow instructions. This helps reduct the bottleneck on the system bus when high speed screen redraws are needed, etc. It's especially helpful with 3D accelerator cards.


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Justin Nelson
FutureQuest Support

[Bi4Be]

Speaking about processor speeds, I recently read about a KyroTech system with a 450Mhz Pentium II (PIII's are to be banned for all eternity in my P.O.V.).

Anyways.... It works like a PC refrigerator that cools down your PC to (I think it was...) 37 Degrees Farenheit (sp?). Anyways, it costs a mere $19,500 and runs at maximum speeds of 750Mhz. I wouldn't think it would last very long though, all that condensation of little "dew drops" will probably kill it off in a year max. http://www.aota.net/ubb/biggrin.gif

My question is (it my be dumb) how on earth does that increase speed by almost 50%. It just cools it down for smoother/faster running, right?

-Bi4Be

[Justin]

Boy, the net is slow all around today (or my ISP...)

Anyway, I've been thinking about getting a Peltier junction (not sure how that's spelled). It's basically a semiconductor device that transfers heat from one site to the other. You stick it between the CPU and heat sink and it will draw all the heat from the chip to the other side - sort of like a transister refridgerator http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

They are very neat. A mere 3 volts at only a few microamperes makes the cold side stick to your hand http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif I played with one on 2 AA batteries and was impressed.

I've seen them for like $10 at computer shows before, but you can't just stick it on the chip and put power to it - you would need a temp regulator on there too.

I was thinking about making one, and putting a little control panel in a 5 1/4" knockout in an empty drive bay (digital temp monitor, maybe a temp control) just for the heck of it. My CPU gets extremely hot and I have 5 fans total in my machine.

These things aren't commercially available yet, and I don't know where to get them - a friend of mine had one he picked up either at a computer show or a ham convention for around $10.

Ok, enough rambling out of me http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

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Justin Nelson
FutureQuest Support

[genc]

I wanted to make an educated guess.....
As the temperature decreases the electrical conductivity (is this the correct word) of the material increases. Around 0 Kelvin (the lowest temparature which can be reached), everything becomes superconductors, even the plastic, glass etc.
For the semiconductors (they are kind of bad conductors, but better than plastic) which are the basics of the transistors and chips, the same applies.
better conductivity means the electrons are moving faster and easier.
I don't know the exact technical details but this is my guess.
PS: I am not sure if all this are true or not...

[Justin]

You're sort of right there... electrons don't travel at a given speed, per se...

Imaging a water hose full of marbles. You insert a new marble in one end, and one pops out of the other end. That's how electrons flow through a conductor. They don't travel the length of the conductor, rather they push eachother through.

Now imagine we put something in the hose to make it harder for the marbles to travel. Sap or something http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif Now it takes more pressure to push the marbles through. Needless to say, the longer the hose, the harder they are to push through (more resistance). Also, the harder you push them through, the faster they will move (more current) and the more heat will be produced.

A semiconductor is not really adding resistance - it is more like a control valve. Hard to explain without writing a book on it though... so let's just say that higher temps do introduce more resistance. But as for CPU's, it's more a protective measure. As the temp rises, the CPU boggs itself down, like how some cars lose power when you run low on oil or high on temp. Otherwise you'd have a thermal runaway situation.

At any rate, no, not everything becomes a superconductor at 0 Kelvin - only certain materials. The less the molecules are moving around, the easier the electrons can flow through them. But if something's not a conductor, it's simply not a conductor http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif If everything was a superconductor at 0 Kelvin, it would be useless - you would have no insulators, therefore everything would be a dead short http://www.aota.net/ubb/redface.gif

I really have to quit doing this...

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Justin Nelson
FutureQuest Support

[genc]

Justin you are exactly right except..
At 0 K everything becomes superconductors because (I am sure about this part), 0 Kelvin, which also called absolute 0, is the lowest temperature in the universe theoretically possible. At zero Kelvin all the material are going to have 0 Energy, and all the molecules stop moving absolutely, so that the electrons can move freely as you said. But 0 degree is impossible to reach. 1 degree maybe with very expansive systems.
There are certain materials (I think ceramic), which shows superconductor behaviour at -40, -50 fahrenheit, which is easier to reach. And these have real life applications.
PS: 0 Kelvin = -454Fahrenheit ??

[Justin]

I have to disagree though - not all material exhibits the behavior of a conductor... in order for an atom to be able to conduct electricity, it has to have a free electron in it's outer "ring" (I forgot the name...) as some atoms are "locked", so to speak... this is hard to explain without resorting to my electronics theory books, but I know that a material has to exhibit some properties of being a conductor before it could be a superconductor.

Yes, certain ceramic materials do conduct, but so little that they can be considered an insulator until you plunge them in liquid nitrogen http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif But you have the basic theory pretty much on target though http://www.aota.net/ubb/biggrin.gif

It is possible that I could be wrong about the 0 K thing though... but I am pretty sure that only certain materials do that.

Great - now I have to dig out my Isaac Azimov books http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif hehe


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Justin Nelson
FutureQuest Support

[Bi4Be]

Wowza! Excuse me if I am just stupid, but... what are you two discussing, maybe we could speak english? http://www.aota.net/ubb/biggrin.gif

Eitherway, I am not gonna get one of those conductor thingy makiggies until they are available in say, CompUSA or Best Buy. It sounds alittle risky and not 100% developed for the PC right now, although it is an ingenious idea. http://www.aota.net/ubb/on.gif

-Bi4Be

PS: Posting a reply on long posts is tough, maybe the happy nice people could add "Post Topic" and "Reply" buttons all the way down here in there spare time? (if they get any, on my priority scale this is a 1 tho)

[Justin]

Um, look down, just a little to the left, a little more to the left, not so low, right there! See? Add Topic and Reply! hehe http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

[Dean B]

LOL http://www.aota.net/ubb/biggrin.gif

Dean.

[Jacob Stetser]

I don't have one of them Pentiums or Cyrices or AMDs- I have a chip from IBM, a PowerPC http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

I can't wait until my copy of Mac OS X Server comes- more toys!

http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

I'm trying to find a cheap PC for Linux but I don't know what I want.. is a P133 enough to run Linux respectably fast? What about if I want to use X-windows or Enlightenment or something like that?

Jake

[Charles Capps]

Linux and X ran fine (IMHO) on my Cyrix 166. Then I screwed up the partition table... *grumbles something about bugs in Win95's FDISK*

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"Okay, so I'm not "SANE" so to speak, but uh... I'm the lovable kind of psycho"
http://solareclipse.net/

[Del]

Jacob,

I run RedHat 5.2 on a Pentium 90 with 48 megs RAM. The 6.4 gig drive is split in half, the first half holds Win98 and the second half holds Linux. The box was $200 with 16mb RAM and a half-gig hard drive (prolly a rip, but I was in a manic spending mood *eg*). I added the 6.4 HDD for $170-ish. I did not install LILO, I just use a boot disk when I want to run Linux instead of windows (not sure if LILO would've worked anyway, I think the boot partition is too deep (for lack of a better word)).

For the most part I have significantly less troubles with this wacko old box (it's a Compaq, built in 92 I think) than I do with the Sony (Pentium 166, 64MB RAM, 2.1 and 6.4 gig drives, Win95, bought new in 96).

I've also tinkered with Linux (same redhat 5.2) on an ancient 386 with approx 10 megs RAM. Worked fairly well considering the old chip and miniscule memory (that box had the 6.4g hard drive I stole for the Pentium box tho)(now the 386 is sitting in the closet with a toasted 512mb hard drive hehehe)

Del

[h8redrulz]

I ran two systems: P200MMX and Cyrix 6x86 PR200+MX with the same system board, memory (32MB), video card, sound card, hard drive, and O/S (Win95B).[nbsp][nbsp]The Cyrix machine would boot 10 seconds faster than the Intel machine.[nbsp][nbsp]The Cyrix machine would run apps approximately 5 seconds faster than the Intel machine (on average).

I'm a computer repair technician who's replaced many processors.[nbsp][nbsp]80% have been AMD brand; only about 15% have been Cyrix brand (the remaining 5% were Intel; Mac's Motorola/IBM processors are integrated with the system boards).

Where do you think I spend the money?

Regardless, the real power of computing comes from parallel processing.[nbsp][nbsp]I couldn't find any system boards with non-Intel dual processor support.[nbsp][nbsp]Needless to say, I'll send the money for the slightly less speedy Intel chips to make sure my BeOS/Linux/WinNT machine can bury the single-processor Cyrix machine.[nbsp][nbsp]But if you don't want to fork over the cash for a multiprocessor product and speed IS a factor, I'd say Cyrix is the best bet.
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"Out the token ring, through the router, down the fiber, off
a switch, past the firewall, down the T1...nothing but Net."

[Jacob Stetser]

Hey H8red,

[nbsp]Thankfully the practice of "integrating" the processor on the Macs is no more (and actually has been no more for several years), although some processor daughtercards still have the ROM on it, making upgrades difficult. But most machines made in the past year or so can have the processor upgraded easily, since Apple uses the ZIF-style slot now.

Wish I had a way to upgrade this iMac to G4 when it comes out (iMac has ROM on the daughtercard), although I didn't buy it for upgradability and I'll probably buy a new machine when those come out.

I think my Free-PC runs on an AMD chip. Weird thing is, the Free-PC freezes when I let it go to sleep and when it wakes up, moving the mouse just makes a weird geiger counter like sound from the speakers. Everything else is locked, including the keyboard, so Ctrl-Alt-Del doesn't work. Any ideas?
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