Socket 7 Systems fun project, my ideas, problems, questions

[Cokai]

Hi everyone,

Because i love the old Socket 7 Boards and CPU's i'm planing to set up some of them for a while now.

1. My available hardware:
- 6x Pentium I P55C (233 Mhz, 66 Mhz Bus-Speed)
- 6x M599LMR- PC CHIPS Mainboard (Link: http://www.motherboard.cz/mb/pcchips/M599LMR.htm)
- variant types of NIC's with and without PXE
- lots of SDRAM Modules
- some power supply units
- lots of CPU coolers for Socket 7

2. My plans/ideas are ...
... to run linux on all 6 machines, but each of it with different services. webserver, routing, proxyserver, mailserver, firewall, my own linux repository and maybe a NNTP Server.
All of the machines will be boot by PXE and the images will be served by my Ubuntu AMD DualCore Server, i already have.

3. My considerations about hardware, that are not settled by now and i would appreciate your help with are:

a) Instead of the NIC's with PXE and booting by PXE i consider about using flash drives like these: http://www.transcendusa.com/products/Mo ... p?ModNo=26.
But for the amount of GB they are very expensive.
Is there any alternative, or what would you personally prefer ?

b) Instead of the Pentium I CPU i'm thinking about an AMD K6-II or K6-III. They are on ebay for 6 or 8 Euro's each.
How big is the performance difference between Pentium I - 233 Mhz and AMD K6 II or III @ 400 Mhz ? Especially, i dont want to play games or view videos with them. Any ideas or knowledge on that ? Or what would you prefer ?

c) And besides the power supply units i would love to have all cooled without fans even/especially the cpu's. I heard the AMD K6-II @ 400 Mhz and the P1 233 Mhz could do so. Any hints or knowledge ?

Finally please keep in mind, this is a fun project of mine. The goal is to have these beautiful old computers doing some useful things for me at home. So i can stare at them and just love them

Yours sincerely,
Cokai

[Jim]

The PC Chips boards, are not the best available by any means. And the Intel processors again are low performance as compared to an AMD K6-3+. Further, the concept of passive cooling will cost you some performance. But it is up to you what you want to do.

[Cokai]

The PC Chips boards, are not the best available by any means. And the Intel processors again are low performance as compared to an AMD K6-3+. Further, the concept of passive cooling will cost you some performance. But it is up to you what you want to do.

Hi Jim,

ty for the answer.
First i already have these PC Chips boards or is anything with them, besides there are boards out there that perform better, that makes them even not considerable ? On ebay the prices for socket 7 boards are going crazy since a few month.
Second, ok AMD K6-3 are faster than the P1-233 CPU's, but how much ? Is it like twice as fast or only 10% faster ? If it is "only" 10% i would not care. Do you know any good website, that has a performance test still online after all these years ?

And please tell me if I make a total mistake in any of my thoughts

And yes, i would spent a little bit of performance to get them passively cooled.

Ty
Cokai

[Jim]

Do you have Everest ? I haven't run an Intel 233 for years, so I don't know how well they perform; but you can see what sort of results you can get with a K6-3+ here :

http://www.k6plus.com/index.php?name=PN ... torder=asc

The best results I obtained can be found on the second page of that thread. Note : You could not possibly obtain results like that with passive cooling.

[moondog]

Hi Cokai,

I know that such comparisons always depend on the used applications or games, but I remember a page that said, a K6-3 400 would perform nearly 4times better than an odd P233 MMX in multi-thread. I doubt it is that much faster, but if you say twice at fast it could match half way... The P233MMX may have a good FPU but will be completely outperformed by the 3level-cache-concept of the K6-3...

If you get a K6-3 400+ and you can run it at 1,6 or 1,8 volt on your board, you should be able to use passive cooling. I tried it by myself before I o´clocked my ATZ and he was quite cold at 1,8 volt and with big passive cooling block. But I wouldn´t do it with any non-plus, esp. the AHX are quite hot without an active cooling and will burn away...

Btw, I wonder what LMR boards you have, how much cache do they have?! Just want to link to another discussion about the SiS530 chipset...

http://www.k6plus.com/index.php?name=PN ... 7466#17466

Greetings,

Eric

[Cokai]

Do you have Everest ? I haven't run an Intel 233 for years, so I don't know how well they perform; but you can see what sort of results you can get with a K6-3+ here :
http://www.k6plus.com/index.php?name=PN ... torder=asc

Wow, nice testing series, you took quite an effort to do that list.

You could not possibly obtain results like that with passive cooling.

yeah, but let me define my needs a little bit better. I want the max performance out of an passively cooled processor. Without water cooling. So, what I'm going for is a P1 or a K6-2 or 3 because i "heard" that a P1-233 or K6-2 or 3 both at 400 Mhz can be cooled passevily. And all the considerations about the P1-233 are because i already have them.

Until now i didn't find a website that compared the P1-233 directly with the K6-3-400 or above. I think, there is/was no doubt that the K6-3 is way faster. But I found certain indicators that the K6-3 runs circles around the P1.

1. At that german website they mentioned the K6-3 500 faster than some P III (!) Slot 1 CPU's, because of the built-in L2 Cache of the K6-3.
Link (german, didnt find it in engl.) : http://www.tomshardware.de/prozessor-ve ... 198-7.html
Quick google translation of the important phrase from that website:
"The performance exceeded the AMD K6-III 500 so some Pentium III (!). The reason: The CPU has an integrated L2 cache of 256 kB - in combination with a 2 MB L3 cache on the motherboard, CPU, this is the absolute performance killers."

2. The following two websites compared the P1-233 in their benchmarks only with AMD K5 and K6-2/300 and even the K6-1/233 was about 5% faster.
http://www.kingli.com/cpu-compare.htm
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Pentium/I ... 03233.html

3. At the www.archive.org "waybackmachine" i found a benchmarking between K6-2/400, Celeron 400 and Pentium II 450. Unfortunately again, no K6-3 in the test.
Link: http://web.archive.org/web/199910050459 ... ew-07.html



What about the energy consumption. Important for the passiv cooling.

From these two german links (charts at the bottom of each are international understandable) you can gather the information of the power needed for the specific CPU's
a) Pentium 1- 233 Mhz = 17,0 watts
b) K6-2/400 (AFQ) = 22,7 watts
c) K6-2/400 (AFR) = 16,9 watts
d) K6-3/400 (AHX) = 26,8 watts
e) K6-3/400 (AFR) = 18,1 watts
Links:
http://www.pc-erfahrung.de/prozessor/de ... m-mmx.html
http://www.pc-erfahrung.de/prozessor/de ... k5-k6.html

Probably b) and d) can not be passively cooled.

If i keep in mind what moondog said

I tried it by myself before I o´clocked my ATZ and he was quite cold at 1,8 volt and with big passive cooling block. But I wouldn´t do it with any non-plus, esp. the AHX are quite hot without an active cooling and will burn away...

i have only to reflect one last thing:

how much are K6-2/400(AFR) or K6-3/400(AFR) at ebay. Are they available. Perhaps all the 5 and 7 Euro one's are the "hot" pieces

If anyone has further ideas, dont hold back.

Yours sincerely,
Cokai



P.S.

Btw, I wonder what LMR boards you have, how much cache do they have?

1MB L2 Cache onboard

[moondog]

Good morning,

just try this one, I´ve bought the same some months back...

http://cgi.ebay.de/SOKET-7-BOARD-OVERCL ... 20b2848311

Min/Typical/Max power dissipation (W) 2.5 (Stop Grant mode) / 7.1 / 9.5

Overall it costs 10 Euro incl. shipping but is definitly worth the price... why buying a K6-2 if you can get a K6-3+ for about the same price. I´ve seen some statements of people who undervolted the ATZ to 1,3 volt@300 Mhz... so you have still the advantage of the 3Level-Cache that you don´t have with the odd K6-2...

Greetings,

Eric

[Cokai]

Hi Moondog,

these ebay K6-3's are the ones i have found, too. And btw. I'm from germany, too.
I'm very happy, that you are here. Because of your experience with exact that cpu you gave me the good feeling doing nothing wrong buying from that ebay shop.

If all is running i will post my experience here. But i'm not fast, could be take2-3 weeks till all is set up

Thank you moondog and Jim !

Cokai

[Jim]

One other detail : You can vastly improve performance by using WPCredit. What is that ? It is a prgram that allows you to access ALL of the chipset settings; (about 20,000 of them) - Not just the few that are in the bios.

But in order to use WPCredit, you have to have PCR Files for your chipset. You can find WPCredit in the downloads section here, and also find PCR Files for some chipsets in the downloads section; and more PCR Files for some chipsets HERE :

http://www.k6plus.com/index.php?name=PN ... pic&t=1702

Operating instructions for WPCredit can be found HERE :

http://www.k6plus.com/index.php?name=PN ... pic&t=1440

Available settings and test results for using WPCredit on the MVP 3 Chipset can be found HERE :

http://www.k6plus.com/index.php?name=PN ... pic&t=1406

Basically WPCredit allows you to approximately double your "Memory Write" speed, and increase your "Memory Read" speed by about 50%. - so in choosing a motherboard, one consideration to take into account is : Are PCR Files available for the chipset ?

[Cokai]

Hi Jim,

i didnt know that tools like WPCredit exist. Thank you.
But is it safe to use. I mean, are there probabilities that i can destroy anything and is there a reset to standard button ?
And how intuitive is it, do i have to know everything about mainboards or is it declaring itself ?
Well, i know many things about PC's, but there are also many things i don't know
Hm , let me take a look a those operating instructions for WPCredit ....

Ty,
Cokai

[Jim]

WPCredit is fairly safe to use, provided you are sensible and don't go messing with the reserved settings. It can sometimes cause system crashes, when you are experimenting with various settings, but the settings are temporary, and automatically revert to their original settings on reboot so you won't hurt anything by trying a setting that causes a crash. To set thing permanently, (AFTER YOU HAVE YOUR TWEAKS ALL WORKED OUT, AND PROVEN SAFE), you use WPCrset.

[Cokai]

Hello,

I've made a decision, i'm selling my Super Socket 7 Boards, the one's I was talking about in this thread, with 1 MB L2 Cache onboard including CPU and Ram on each of them on ebay. If somebody here in at the board is from germany and is interested, here is the link to my auction:

http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie ... :MESELX:IT

If the link does not work, the name of the auction is "6 Stück M599LMR- PC CHIPS Sockel 7 Board + CPU's + RAM".

The reason for selling them is the that i got 10 Pentium III from a friend with Siemens boards. Very cool stuff and the PIII-633 i got have the some energy consumption as a K6-3 400. So that made my decision reletively easy.
Thank you all for your very good advices, Jim and Moondog,

Cokai