Which one is faster, AMD K6-3 400 or Celeron 400?

[smartxtai]

I am thinking of upgrading my computer and I am a hard core gamer. I have a Cyrix right and it is very slow at gaming because it doesn't have that floating point thing. WEll, I was wondering if I should buy a Celeron or AMD k6-3 processor. Which one is better at gaming. I know that Pentiums are the best at it but which proessor is the second best. Celeron or AMD K6-3? Also, which one is better at overclocking?

[buitenb]

the celeron is a little bit faster and
a better overclocker"(i have a amd k6-2 350@400) that als runs very nice

[AuraEdge]

That might be true with K6-2 vs Celeron..but Celeron vs K6-3 Im not so sure..Id still opt for the celeron unless your business app happy. Also Id suspect the K6-3 is a better overclocker with an Unlocked Multiplyer...If never fiddled with a AMD in my life so Im just speculating

[800XL]

This is a double edged sword of a question. It really depends on the video card you are running, or plan to run. If it or its drivers have very good 3D Now support, the AMD will perform quite well in gaming. If not, you are better off with a Celeron more than likely. I would say the a Celeron machine will probably give you less headaches and more joy overall. Also a better bet for long term upgrades as a P2/3 and most likely future Intel chips will run in the same board. The outlook for Socket7/Super7 boards is pretty grim.

Celerons can typically overclock more percentage wise than an AMD CPU. With an AMD you have the luxury of an unlocked multiplier which gives you more choices in how you overclock though. I have not had much luck with overclocking AMD K6-3s, but my sum total experience in them lies with 11 very early 400Mhz chips.

[AndreBranco]

k6-3
try this link:

http://www.amd.com/products/cpg/k6iii/k6iiibchmks.html

my system:
celeron 400 with only 128kb of cache memory

[CMonster]

http://www.amd.com/products/cpg/k6iii/k6iiibchmks.html

[AndreBranco]

thank u cmonster

[This message has been edited by AndreBranco (edited 07-13-99).]

[smartxtai]

Dang, I never knew that a AMD K6-3 could even beat a pentium processor 3. If these results are accurate then I think I may be better off with a AMD K6-3.

[sparki]

ok celerons are the best to over clock by offering the biggest potential overclock.

k6-2 and -3 are easy to overclock becasue there multipiers are not locked.

k6-3 will not clock up as well as a 2 because of thier cache.

and the above peps are right socket seven is dead.

athlon mobo's are too unstable for my liking at the moment. so my next board is going to be the new abit.

[ktwebb]

Imagine that, a benchmark on AMD's site giving good reviews to their product. AMD K-6 Line FPU sucks. Real world benches do not lie.

[davidk]

I am also a hardcore gamer.
My K6-3 and motherboard with 2MB cache is extremely fast, faster than intel equivalents in games and business apps.
If you hear someone come out with all the floating point **** then ignore them, its bull****. Get a K6-3 450, motherboard with 2Mb cache AND MORE IMPORTANTLY A GOOD VIDEO CARD.

[Dominus]

Smartxtai, the K6-3 can often beat Xeons in integer performance, and in some tests, even its cousin the Athlon. In x86 CPUs, it's integer performance is second to none. FPU, on the other hand, is not a strong point in the K6-2 and K6-3s. The better processor for you depends on what you will be using it for.

[ck42866]

I say the celeron is the best for gaming. Why? I had both and the celeron beat the k63 and k62 in gaming hands down. On the other had the windows performance was not as good as the AMD chips. FPU does make a difference but so does 3dnow. Just my 1 cent

[oblivion]

The celeron will put a smackdown to the k6-3 in gaming and 3d apps.....there is no ifs ands or buts about it........

The k6-3 will put a smackdown to a pIII,and sometimes a xeon in business apps and server type situations.

I do mostly gaming,and I surf the web alot,so I upgraded my k62 to a celeron 366 and OCed to 605,it is very fast,but if I had a server,or I was using office all day long I would likely get a k6-3.....even if you did get the celeron over a k6-3 the celeron wouldnt be much notably slower in feel then the k6-3.

Another big thing to think about is the fact that the celeron(slot one pentium style)MB will have a much much longer life then the k6-3 will,this is because ss7 is pretty much dead.

[RobRich]

OK, for a real hardware level specific comparison of the two, I will cut and paste this from an earlier post of mine in the cpu forums:

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I'll try to stay realatively non-technical on this. The k6 core does not have a pipelined fpu. It has a standard fpu execution unit. It can't effectively process fpu operations unless it is being fed a continous stream of them. The k6 fpu is actually faster than Intel's when processing just one instruction, but most software use mutliple fpu instruction calls. This raises the question, "Then why doesn't it perform well in games, were there are continous fpu function calls?" The problem lies not in the execution portion of the chip, but in the decoding stage. The decoders basically translate operations into something that the cpu's execution stage can understand. The decoding units in the k6 core are relatively slow as compared to the execution units. When the decoing unit can not "feed" anough information to the execution units, a bottleneck (and possbile timeouts) occur. This means that the fpu is no longer extremely effective, because it has to wait for incoming data. This creates gaps in the flow, and like I stated above, the k6 fpu needs continuous data to be effective.

The k6 core can also not use out of order instruction processing. Intel chips can literally rearrange cpu operation calls, so that they can be processed in a more effiecent manner. Like calls are grouped together, and thus creates a more even and continous flow of data through the core. Intel's decoding units are also quite a bit more powerful than the k6's. They are as fast as the execution stage, so data can stream through the processor. Intel's pipelined fpu is the biggest reason for better gaming performance. In simplistic terms, it buffers fpu instructions until enough are present to create a continuous data stream to the fpu unit.

The k6 core is extremely efficient when performing intger calculations. The k6-3 was probably the best desktop application processor at its release. When teamed with a quality motherboard (with 2 meg of m/b level cache), the k6-3 could easilt over power similar p3 cpu's in integer based apps. It also had improved memory throughput and instruction handling through the use of the on die 256kb full speed l2 cache. It allowed the cpu to find a function call in three extremely high speed areas (L1, L2, and L3) before seeking it in slower areas (system memory and hard drive). It was the ideal cpu of choice for business, not only for workstations, but servers as well. When in the server role, the on die cache and fast integer unit provided an excellent performace boost for i/o operations (esp. memory and disk) as compared to its competitors (p2/3, celeron, even Xeon!)

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The k6 core offers excellent integer performance, but due to a lack of a pipelined fpu, it's gaming capability is somewhat limited. If the game and vid drivers are optimized for 3dnow! then it has a fighting chance. Otherwise, the celeron will surpase it 99% of the time, esp. when used at the 100mhz front side bus.

As for overclocking, the Intel cpu has the most potential, even being multiplier locked. A c366 will commonly run at 550+mhz. The AMD k6-2 has improved with their newer AFX and AFR cores (2.2v defualt), and most 450's are now making 550 with good cooling. My older CTX core (2.4v)cpu is currently running at 523, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you have some serious cooling, since I run it at 2.9v! The k6-3 is not a great overclocker. Most k6-3's usually o/c by 50mhz with good cooling and a little more voltage. The on-die level 2 cache is a limiting factor. AMD even had a hard time producing these cpu's at first because of l2 cache problems.

The biggest issue is future upgrades. With socket7, the best you can get is a k6-3. AMD no longer design new chips for s7, and VIA has moved their Cyrix and Winchip divisions to the s370 platform.

I was hoping that Rise might finally get around to releasing their mp6-2 cpu, but according to my latest info, the project has been abandoned due to a lack of interest. It was to build on the mp6. It was to offer 450+ mhz operating speeds, a true superscalat design, 256kb of full speed on-die l2 cache, MMX, SIMD (3dnow!) support, pipelined fpu, and a three way integer processing core. If released this would have been serious competition for AMD and Intel. If you examined the documents closely, this chip was on par with the likes of the Athlon and the CU-mine, but for the socket7 platform. Rise is now mostly interested in the emmbedded applications for the x86 architecture, such as video phones and mall kiosks. Kind of a sad story for a once radical manufacturer.

[This message has been edited by RobRich (edited 03-13-2000).]