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Author Topic:   Slot 1?

MiKaeLe posted 07-20-99 09:22 PM ET
I am about to buy a AMD K7 500mhz, and I am thinking about putting it on a ASUS motherboard.
I would like to know if anyone of you have actually tryed this processor, or read something reliable about it. I would like to know if it is a good, reliable and stabile or it will come up to be a Celeron kind of shame.
MiK�Le
Plasmoid posted 07-20-99 11:38 PM ET
It's supposed to be a good chip, but the K7 will NOT work in motherboards that support P2/P3 .
Spoe posted 07-21-99 12:40 PM ET
Yep. You need a Slot A board.
Also not entirely sure what you mean by, "a Celeron kind of shame", as they've been good chips since they added cache to them.
bene4 posted 07-21-99 12:56 PM ET
Actually, the Celerons a's are more desireable chips because of their low cost and easy overclocking. The 300a and the 333a regularly run stable at over 400 MHz speeds, and for 60$, you can't go wrong.
I would *love* to see the AMD K7 turn out to be exactly like the celeron a, but I know this will not happen. Fact is, the celerons are basically underclocked P2s, with faster on chip cache, and lower price tag. The only reason they exist was to maintain Intel market share in low end market.
The K7 is a mid to high end chip that will perform well at nice speeds. As far as I know, the 500 won't go too much faster than 500 MHz, but should be stable (heard anything from Cyrix recently???) and won't have the P3 unique ID thing.
Just my take on things. If you want more info check out www.f3d.net, the Fresh 3d network. They've got good info on new hardware and stuff.
MiKaeLe posted 07-22-99 01:06 PM ET
What I heard is that the K7 will run on slot 1. I got no idea what kinda slot this is, but it is supposed to have a aproach similar to the one used in slot A.
Also not entirely sure what you mean by, "a Celeron kind of shame", as they've been good chips since they added cache to them
Well, I have tested all vers of celerons, and so far they turned out to be good for photoshop only. The co-processor rules, but the chip is a turtle when it comes to 3D. I have seen some of the Celeron psp(or something) that have cache, but the only difference I menaged to notice is a 5%-7% speed-ups on games. The bottom line is that if you need processor of that class, you should be smart, and go buy an AMD K6-2 3D 300.
The K7 is a mid to high end chip that will perform well at nice speeds. As far as I know, the 500 won't go too much faster than 500 MHz, but should be stable (heard anything from Cyrix recently???) and won't have the P3 unique ID thing
The AMD K7's will be a revolution, as they are made in Alpha RISC technology, for the first time used on PC's here. And with Cyrix in the Recycling tanks, I don't think anything can go wrong. Putting the unique ID will mess up Intel good, and they know it, but someone(read Microsoft) has involved great sums of cash, so, they'll try, and they'll fail.(except on the USA market, afcourse)
What I was aking here is, if someone has had a chance to try this processor, couse I realy don't bealive none of the crap written in the reviews...when you feel it, then you know.
TheHelperMonkey posted 07-25-99 09:21 AM ET
Don't buy the K6-2!
Some 3-d cards aren't compatible with it. And so some games. Games such as Half-Life, Battlezone, and Motocross Madness don't run on my AMD k6-2 with a Monster Fusion. I'm gonna buy a 400 mhz celeron and a Viper 770 TNT2 ultra card and a 162 MB's of PC100 memory for $309. It's an awesome deal.
Dreadnought posted 07-25-99 10:09 AM ET
Helper is right, I belive the processor has some Voodoo 2 & 3 compatability issues. K62 looks pretty tempting with that low price, but you're better off spedning the extra dough and going with a celeron or vannila pentium. I've been hearing nothing but good things about the new 3DNOW! that the K6-2 comes with, with the exception of course that there are only about 9 games on the market that support it :P Bascially, 3DNOW is 21 new instructions added to the original K6 design. This also allows SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) processing use uses up to four floating-point operations per cycle. What this means is that FPS games are givin a signifigant boost, that is if they support 3DNOW!
If you're going for a system to do more work that games, the Level 2 cache that the K6-2 comes with, but it's rarely used by games. Celeron has minimal to nil Level 2 cache, one of the contributing factors to it's lower price. So, IMHO, go with the Celeron. The price is pretty good, maybe a bit lower than the K6-2.
Wraith posted 07-25-99 11:28 AM ET
--"and won't have the P3 unique ID thing"
The big flap over the whole P3 ID thing was faintly amusing, actually. Chip makers have long included unique IDs in their chips, and AMD is no exception. They're numbered by wafer and even x/y coordinates so that manufacturing problems can be traced. Intel was just stupid to try to pass it off as a security feature.
--" but it is supposed to have a aproach similar to the one used in slot A."
Slot A is basically the EV6 bus the Alpha chips use. It is not the same as Slot 1 (what Intel uses), and not really similar except physically (ie, they both use the same connectors). Slot A is a superior architecture, but is more expensive to produce, so we'll just have to wait and see on it.
--"The AMD K7's will be a revolution, as they are made in Alpha RISC technology,"
That doesn't make them a revolution, since RISC tech has been around rather a long time, and AMD certainly isn't alone in using it. I should also point out that Intel has done amazingly well sticking with their semi-CISC setup, and it will be interesting to see how well they do a full RISC chip soon.
--"Some 3-d cards aren't compatible with it"
Most of the problem is with the motherboard chipsets, actually. Several of them (especially ones from Ali) are less than stellar, and have caused many problems for general system stability as well as 3D cards.
--"Helper is right, I belive the processor has some Voodoo 2 & 3 compatability issues."
Actually, as I said, it's the motherboards, but the problems aren't generally with Voodoo chipsets. The TNT cards seem the be the worst hit, since they use some of the less used AGP hooks, although I believe ALI has bios updates that take care of most of these problems now.
--"with the exception of course that there are only about 9 games on the market that support it"
There are a lot of games that support it directly, and even more that do indirectly since Voodoo and TNT drivers take advantage of 3d-now. Less games support Intels relatively new SSE on the P3, but again, there's driver support for it and more and more games that use it.
Personally, the processor to buy right now is a P3-450. It's actually cheaper than the P2-450, overclocks reasonably, gives you Intel's FPU power with a 100mhz bus and the new SSE instructions, as well as giving you the processor power to run the new 3D cards like the TNT2 and G400. It also runs on the pretty solid BX chipsets (Asus P3B-F baby . If you do have to go for a cheaper chip, the Celerons are a great choice, and aren't that much of a price difference from the K6s.
Wraith
My parents went to Sol 3 and all I got was this stupid human
GaryD posted 07-26-99 05:28 AM ET
Wow I hadn't realised it was out yet.
Athlon
" TARGET=_blank>http://www.amd.com/products/cpg/athlon/index.html
Any reviews/opinions/etc ?
GaryD posted 07-26-99 05:34 AM ET
Fu<>cking hell. Takes ages to get through this bleedy proxy and then not only do I get a mess, but yet again it keeps failing to post !!!!!!
Athlon
MiKaeLe posted 07-26-99 08:13 AM ET
--"The AMD K7's will be a revolution, as they are made in Alpha RISC technology,"
That doesn't make them a revolution, since RISC tech has been around rather a long time, and AMD certainly isn't alone in using it. I should also point out that Intel has done amazingly well sticking with their semi-CISC setup, and it will be interesting to see how well they do a full RISC chip soon
I wasn't talking about RISC technology in global, but about ALPHA RISC technology, which is VERY different from the RISC technology used in the AMD processors so far. Also, I understood that some of the engineers that are developing Alpha systems have worked on this chip.
I still ain't hearin anybody who has tryed the K7. Is it so rare right now?
MiKaeLe posted 07-26-99 08:17 AM ET
Ahhh..they have named the monster...and the name is Athlon Thanks GaryD.
No new info on the site though..just the yadda yadda they gave us about the first ver of the K7. Anybody actually seeing it work?
GaryD posted 07-26-99 08:44 AM ET
Aye, FAQ should be renamed, "questions we're going to waffle about and not really answer"
Spoe posted 07-26-99 03:16 PM ET
AFAIK the Athlon(K7) isn't a RISC chip; it uses the x86 instruction set with AMD's 3DNow! extensions. As far as I can tell from AMD's literature the only Alpha technology involved is the EV6 bus, allowing a 200 MHz bus(scalable to 400 MHz) and a different SMP architecture.
MiKaeLe posted 07-26-99 04:34 PM ET
And as far as I can tell, that was the only purpose of the RISC technology till now..and the only purpose that will have..since if they put a RISC chipset, it won't be a PC, but a Alpha..or maybe even worse
Zonak posted 07-30-99 10:36 PM ET
Time will tell is the K7 processor as good as it is announced to be , until then talk......talk........talk........
MiKaeLe posted 08-01-99 06:17 AM ET
Blah blah AMD blah Zonak blah K7 blah
Oddeka pa ti se ispili da te ebam..
SMACTrek posted 08-01-99 12:33 PM ET
The closest I've gotten to a K7 was reading about it. It just came out, so not alot of people have it yet. You might have already been there, but firingsquad.com has quite a few articles on different chips.
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Author	Topic: Slot 1?
MiKaeLe	posted 07-20-99 09:22 PM ET I am about to buy a AMD K7 500mhz, and I am thinking about putting it on a ASUS motherboard. I would like to know if anyone of you have actually tryed this processor, or read something reliable about it. I would like to know if it is a good, reliable and stabile or it will come up to be a Celeron kind of shame. MiK�Le
Plasmoid	posted 07-20-99 11:38 PM ET It's supposed to be a good chip, but the K7 will NOT work in motherboards that support P2/P3 .
Spoe	posted 07-21-99 12:40 PM ET Yep. You need a Slot A board. Also not entirely sure what you mean by, "a Celeron kind of shame", as they've been good chips since they added cache to them.
bene4	posted 07-21-99 12:56 PM ET Actually, the Celerons a's are more desireable chips because of their low cost and easy overclocking. The 300a and the 333a regularly run stable at over 400 MHz speeds, and for 60$, you can't go wrong. I would love to see the AMD K7 turn out to be exactly like the celeron a, but I know this will not happen. Fact is, the celerons are basically underclocked P2s, with faster on chip cache, and lower price tag. The only reason they exist was to maintain Intel market share in low end market. The K7 is a mid to high end chip that will perform well at nice speeds. As far as I know, the 500 won't go too much faster than 500 MHz, but should be stable (heard anything from Cyrix recently???) and won't have the P3 unique ID thing. Just my take on things. If you want more info check out www.f3d.net, the Fresh 3d network. They've got good info on new hardware and stuff.
MiKaeLe	posted 07-22-99 01:06 PM ET What I heard is that the K7 will run on slot 1. I got no idea what kinda slot this is, but it is supposed to have a aproach similar to the one used in slot A. Also not entirely sure what you mean by, "a Celeron kind of shame", as they've been good chips since they added cache to them Well, I have tested all vers of celerons, and so far they turned out to be good for photoshop only. The co-processor rules, but the chip is a turtle when it comes to 3D. I have seen some of the Celeron psp(or something) that have cache, but the only difference I menaged to notice is a 5%-7% speed-ups on games. The bottom line is that if you need processor of that class, you should be smart, and go buy an AMD K6-2 3D 300. The K7 is a mid to high end chip that will perform well at nice speeds. As far as I know, the 500 won't go too much faster than 500 MHz, but should be stable (heard anything from Cyrix recently???) and won't have the P3 unique ID thing The AMD K7's will be a revolution, as they are made in Alpha RISC technology, for the first time used on PC's here. And with Cyrix in the Recycling tanks, I don't think anything can go wrong. Putting the unique ID will mess up Intel good, and they know it, but someone(read Microsoft) has involved great sums of cash, so, they'll try, and they'll fail.(except on the USA market, afcourse) What I was aking here is, if someone has had a chance to try this processor, couse I realy don't bealive none of the crap written in the reviews...when you feel it, then you know.
TheHelperMonkey	posted 07-25-99 09:21 AM ET Don't buy the K6-2! Some 3-d cards aren't compatible with it. And so some games. Games such as Half-Life, Battlezone, and Motocross Madness don't run on my AMD k6-2 with a Monster Fusion. I'm gonna buy a 400 mhz celeron and a Viper 770 TNT2 ultra card and a 162 MB's of PC100 memory for $309. It's an awesome deal.
Dreadnought	posted 07-25-99 10:09 AM ET Helper is right, I belive the processor has some Voodoo 2 & 3 compatability issues. K62 looks pretty tempting with that low price, but you're better off spedning the extra dough and going with a celeron or vannila pentium. I've been hearing nothing but good things about the new 3DNOW! that the K6-2 comes with, with the exception of course that there are only about 9 games on the market that support it :P Bascially, 3DNOW is 21 new instructions added to the original K6 design. This also allows SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) processing use uses up to four floating-point operations per cycle. What this means is that FPS games are givin a signifigant boost, that is if they support 3DNOW! If you're going for a system to do more work that games, the Level 2 cache that the K6-2 comes with, but it's rarely used by games. Celeron has minimal to nil Level 2 cache, one of the contributing factors to it's lower price. So, IMHO, go with the Celeron. The price is pretty good, maybe a bit lower than the K6-2.
Wraith	posted 07-25-99 11:28 AM ET --"and won't have the P3 unique ID thing" The big flap over the whole P3 ID thing was faintly amusing, actually. Chip makers have long included unique IDs in their chips, and AMD is no exception. They're numbered by wafer and even x/y coordinates so that manufacturing problems can be traced. Intel was just stupid to try to pass it off as a security feature. --" but it is supposed to have a aproach similar to the one used in slot A." Slot A is basically the EV6 bus the Alpha chips use. It is not the same as Slot 1 (what Intel uses), and not really similar except physically (ie, they both use the same connectors). Slot A is a superior architecture, but is more expensive to produce, so we'll just have to wait and see on it. --"The AMD K7's will be a revolution, as they are made in Alpha RISC technology," That doesn't make them a revolution, since RISC tech has been around rather a long time, and AMD certainly isn't alone in using it. I should also point out that Intel has done amazingly well sticking with their semi-CISC setup, and it will be interesting to see how well they do a full RISC chip soon. --"Some 3-d cards aren't compatible with it" Most of the problem is with the motherboard chipsets, actually. Several of them (especially ones from Ali) are less than stellar, and have caused many problems for general system stability as well as 3D cards. --"Helper is right, I belive the processor has some Voodoo 2 & 3 compatability issues." Actually, as I said, it's the motherboards, but the problems aren't generally with Voodoo chipsets. The TNT cards seem the be the worst hit, since they use some of the less used AGP hooks, although I believe ALI has bios updates that take care of most of these problems now. --"with the exception of course that there are only about 9 games on the market that support it" There are a lot of games that support it directly, and even more that do indirectly since Voodoo and TNT drivers take advantage of 3d-now. Less games support Intels relatively new SSE on the P3, but again, there's driver support for it and more and more games that use it. Personally, the processor to buy right now is a P3-450. It's actually cheaper than the P2-450, overclocks reasonably, gives you Intel's FPU power with a 100mhz bus and the new SSE instructions, as well as giving you the processor power to run the new 3D cards like the TNT2 and G400. It also runs on the pretty solid BX chipsets (Asus P3B-F baby . If you do have to go for a cheaper chip, the Celerons are a great choice, and aren't that much of a price difference from the K6s. Wraith My parents went to Sol 3 and all I got was this stupid human
GaryD	posted 07-26-99 05:28 AM ET Wow I hadn't realised it was out yet. Athlon " TARGET=_blank>http://www.amd.com/products/cpg/athlon/index.html Any reviews/opinions/etc ?
GaryD	posted 07-26-99 05:34 AM ET Fu<>cking hell. Takes ages to get through this bleedy proxy and then not only do I get a mess, but yet again it keeps failing to post !!!!!! Athlon
MiKaeLe	posted 07-26-99 08:13 AM ET --"The AMD K7's will be a revolution, as they are made in Alpha RISC technology," That doesn't make them a revolution, since RISC tech has been around rather a long time, and AMD certainly isn't alone in using it. I should also point out that Intel has done amazingly well sticking with their semi-CISC setup, and it will be interesting to see how well they do a full RISC chip soon I wasn't talking about RISC technology in global, but about ALPHA RISC technology, which is VERY different from the RISC technology used in the AMD processors so far. Also, I understood that some of the engineers that are developing Alpha systems have worked on this chip. I still ain't hearin anybody who has tryed the K7. Is it so rare right now?
MiKaeLe	posted 07-26-99 08:17 AM ET Ahhh..they have named the monster...and the name is Athlon Thanks GaryD. No new info on the site though..just the yadda yadda they gave us about the first ver of the K7. Anybody actually seeing it work?
GaryD	posted 07-26-99 08:44 AM ET Aye, FAQ should be renamed, "questions we're going to waffle about and not really answer"
Spoe	posted 07-26-99 03:16 PM ET AFAIK the Athlon(K7) isn't a RISC chip; it uses the x86 instruction set with AMD's 3DNow! extensions. As far as I can tell from AMD's literature the only Alpha technology involved is the EV6 bus, allowing a 200 MHz bus(scalable to 400 MHz) and a different SMP architecture.
MiKaeLe	posted 07-26-99 04:34 PM ET And as far as I can tell, that was the only purpose of the RISC technology till now..and the only purpose that will have..since if they put a RISC chipset, it won't be a PC, but a Alpha..or maybe even worse
Zonak	posted 07-30-99 10:36 PM ET Time will tell is the K7 processor as good as it is announced to be , until then talk......talk........talk........
MiKaeLe	posted 08-01-99 06:17 AM ET Blah blah AMD blah Zonak blah K7 blah Oddeka pa ti se ispili da te ebam..
SMACTrek	posted 08-01-99 12:33 PM ET The closest I've gotten to a K7 was reading about it. It just came out, so not alot of people have it yet. You might have already been there, but firingsquad.com has quite a few articles on different chips.