Look Ma! No Lag!

It all began with the “Upgrade” If you read me on a regular basis then you’ll know my story. If not there will be a link at the end of this to the Epinion that I have written on my whole Upgrading ordeal. I used to have a lowly Pentium 166 MHZ computer. Which was ok I suppose, I mean it wasn’t all that great, I did want faster, but it worked none-the-less. I originally looked at the 600 MHZ processors but 800 MHZ weren’t much more expensive, they’re a lot faster and an overall better buy.

I wanted to get a processor that would utilize a lot of RAM, render 3D graphics absolutely and quickly, keep up with me on games and load windows 2000 in less then 5 minutes (it actually loads it in about 20 seconds with 256 Megs) I initially looked into AMD K7 processors but have heard many negative things about them. I’ve heard a lot of good things as well, but I’ve heard more bad about AMD then Intel so I went with Intel.

Benchmark Comparison to 650 MHZ Processors ****

Sysmark 2000 Productivity Benchmark – Win 98
800 MHZ - 160
650 MHZ – 141

Video 2000 Multimedia Benchmark – Performance – Win 98
800 MHZ – 459
650 MHZ – 396

3Dmark 3D/Floating Point Benchmark – Speed – Win 98
800 MHZ – 325
650 MHZ – 280

Sysmark J Internet Technology Benchmark – Win 98
800 MHZ – 1615
650 MHZ – 1379

As you can see, obviously it is faster and better then the 650 MHZ, but that holds true for any processor. “Is it for me?? What do I REALY need?” That can be answered a few different ways. It all depends on what you want to do with your computer and what you can afford to do. Prices have dropped a lot in the past year, and you can expect them to drop on the pIII based processors with the launch of the p4 systems. Do you plan on just using it for internet and word processing? Then you won’t need to go crazy, 500-650 MHZ is more then enough. For serious gaming and programs that require 3D then you’d obviously want a little faster.

Specifications

800 MHZ Core Processor Speed with 133 MHZ System Bus
256KB ON Die Full Speed L2 Cache
Streaming SIMD Extensions
MMX Media Enhancement Technology
Flip Chip PGA
Dynamic Execution
Dual Independent Bus Architecture
Fan Heatsink (Though I upgraded to a larger fan as 800 MHZ gets pretty hot)

Installation is a snap. You just line up the sockets. To make it easy one corner of the processor looks cut-off to make alignment a snap. Drop it in, push it down a little to make sure it is secure and flip the arm on the motherboard to the down position, securing the processor into the heatsink. Connect the fan, make sure it is snugly on there and you’re ready to go!

Now that I’ve got everything installed, I boot Sativa up (Sativa is my computers name) What used to take 2 almost 3 minutes (loading windows and getting the hard drive to stop whizzing and whirring) now takes less then 30 seconds. (And I’m using Win 2k with this system, my previous system ran Win 98) The 1st thing we do is overclock the processor. We bump it up to 850 MHZ, Run SETI @Home (uses a lot of system resources) Also open up and run Microsoft Access, Front Page 2000 and MS Outlook 2000 (Almost maxes out all of my system resources)
“Whoa Chris, what the heck are you doing this for?” Funny you should ask. 1 Simple reason I want to see how it handles stress (Not that I plan on stressing it out much or maxing out my resources very often if at all) But I’m a firm believer in putting something to the test to see how it will perform and react. I ran these programs for 24 hours straight. I kept a close eye on it with my system monitor and it ran absolutely flawlessly. Not a glitch.

After I reset the processor back to 800 MHZ I boot-up, and check out some things. I open up programs individually just to see how fast they load. Mind you, Outlook 2000 (My e-mail program) on my old computer never took less then 60 seconds to load, another 1-2 minutes to have enough sense to connect to the server and download a few e-mails. 15 seconds, I was loaded, connected and reading my e-mail. Fast! Web graphics, especially flash or any animations, run smooth as melted butter now. I used to get aggravated watching my angry kid movies (www.atomfilms.com) because the words never went with the movie and the movie hardly ever ran! Now its like I’m watching it at a theatre (If a theatre had a 15” monitor that was 3 years old)

I can play CD’s or MP3’s, surf the web, use AIM and write E’s in MS Word 2k all while reading e-mail and never skip a beat with this processor. It’s an absolute wonder. I’m very impressed with the performance, totally satisfied with the processor and would recommend anyone with a slower processor upgrade to this.

Epinion Referred to Earlier “Upgrading your system… is it really worth it?”
http://cpbr.epinions.com/cmd-review-6EBA-19E0F84D-3A3EC43A-prod4

**** Benchmark Tests Cited From Intel’s Web Site – www.intel.com

Processor was part of a package that came with a Soyo SY-7VCA Motherboard