The Effects of Cache Speed
Another important note in regards to the 900MHz KryoTech is its L2 cache speed. All of the shipping Athlon processors to date have a cache speed divisor of 2. So an Athlon running at 500MHz would have an L2 at the speed of 250MHz.
However, the cache on this 900MHz computer could not run at 450MHz. Getting cache modules that can even tolerate a 400MHz speed is a tough thing to do. So to solve this problem, the Microstar MS-6167 automatically sets the L2 cache speed to a divisor of 3 when an Athlon 900MHz processor is installed. This puts the L2 at 300MHz for the 900MHz Athlon vs. a 400MHz L2 for the KryoTech 800MHz Athlon. With the slower L2 cache speed of the 900MHz platform the Athlon's performance should start to flatten with certain applications. Let's look at the results and see where the performance of the 900MHz Athlon sits.
System & Environment Settings
| Hardware Information | |
| Intel Pentium III | 500,550,600,(650-Over Clocked) |
| Motherboard | ABIT BX6 2.0 (440BX)(BIOS date 7/13/99) |
| Memory | 128 MB Viking PC100 CAS2 |
| Network | Netgear FA310TX |
| Intel Pentium III | 533B, 600B |
| Motherboard | Intel VC820 (i820, preliminary) |
| Memory | 128MB 800MHz RDRAM (64x2) |
| AMD Athlon | 500,550,600,650,700,(750-Over Clocked),800,900 |
| Motherboard | Microstar MS-6167 |
| Memory | 128 MB Viking PC100 CAS2 |
| Network | Netgear FA310TX |
| Driver Information | |
| NVIDIA GeForce 256 120MHz Core, 300MHz DDR-RAM 32MB |
4.12.01.0347 |
| Environment Settings | |
| OS Versions | Windows 98 SE 4.10.2222 A Windows NT 4.0 w/Service Pack 5 |
| DirectX Version | 7.0 |
| Quake 3 Arena | V1.08 command line = +set cd_nocd 1 +set s_initsound 0 |
| DMZG Demo Version | command line = -bench -tl on |
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