FPU Performance
To make an end with all these discussions on the web about 'real' or 'raw' or whatever FPU performance which still isn't any help at all for people who need real world information about what the number cruncher of a CPU can do, I decided to use 3D Studio Max, which highly depends on the FPU of a processor. This is a real world application so I don't want to hear any stories about 'how the FPU is used'. Whoever needs rendering with his system couldn't care less about 'how the FPU is used' but wants to know which CPU he needs to wait least. This is what this benchmark will tell you.
Please note that less is better in this one !!
These results show us several things. First of all that the FPU performace is obviously depending on the CPUs clock speed and hardly touched by the bus speed. This is logical, since the FPU is not struggling to get data over the bus, but heavily calculating CPU internally. The next thing we can see is that the 6x86MX FPU is still some kind of sad story. Even the K6, which itself is not exactly a FPU racer is considerably sooner finished with the Kinetix logo scene than the upcoming 6x86MX PR266. The Pentium Pro 200 renders this scene in even half the time of the 6x86MX PR233. The Pentium II 300 needs actually only 122 seconds, less than half of the time the 6x86MX PR266 will need.
Summary
Well, there isn't really that much to say. The 6x86MX PR266, expected in the fourth quarter of this year, will have an impressive Windows 95 business application performance, will perform quite well under Windows NT as well, but won't be interesting to anybody who needs a powerful FPU.
