It's not actually optimized for a Pentium so much as the pentium is
optimized for the kind of math that prime95 does. Prime95 uses the FPU
(Floating Point Unit) extensively. The Pentium and Pentium 2 (and 3) can
do a single FLOP (Flointing Point Operation) per clock cycle. It's a
pipelined FPU. This means a 500MHz Pentium can do abou 500 MegaFLOPs.
The K6 has a less advanced FPU and cannot perform one FLOP each clock
cycle. It's significantly slower...perhaps it works arounf 50-75% of the
speed of the Pentium FPU.
However, the K6-2 has the 3DNow! instruction set (similar to P3's SSE)
Which means that the 3DNow! Unit is basically a high speed but simpler FPU.
The 3DNow! unit is like a RISC processor, it can do less sophicated
things, but do them a lot faster. The unit can pump out 4 FLOPs per clock
cycle. A 500MHz processor can theoretically do 2GigaFLOPs. However, I'm
pretty sure Prime95 isn't coded for 3DNow! or SSE, and therefore this is
irrelvent. It may be impossible to code for 3DNow! if the LL tests require
instructions and code that isn't in the 3DNow! unit. I don't know enough
math or programming to be able to answer that conclusively though.
I don't have first hand knowledge, but can speculate that the K6-2 will
perform at about 50-75% of what a Pentium can do clock for clock. But
since the fastest socket-7 Pentium is 233MHz, and that K6-2 is 333, it
should even out...well...actually the K6-2 will come out ahead. To get
much faster performance you'll have to get at least a 300MHz P2 or Celeron,
but that would require a motherboard upgrade, and that's an extra $100 on
top of the CPU price...
I'd stick with the free K6-2 and enjoy the extra CPU time that will go
towards your account.
:-)
--Peter
At 16:32 03/25/1999 -0800, you wrote:
>I have just discovered that my wife is about to be presented with a new
>computer which contains a K6-2/333 processor, 64K L1, 512K L2, 64MB of
>SRAM. I would be willing to invest a few $$$ of my own in an upgrade to
>a Pentium if it made a substantial difference in running Prime95. My
>understanding is that the program has been optimized for the Pentium.
>The question is - how well does it run on the K6?
>
>Can someone please give me a comparison of the merits of the K6 vs. the
>Pentium? Also, please withhold comments on the domestic implications of
>the problem.
>
>Thank you.
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