Does the Pentium MMX Live up to the Expectations?

Introduction

15 days after its official release I eventually received my very own Pentium MMX 200. It was actually a kind donation of Erik Wagner from Nutek Systems USA, IL. I installed it on my system and it it ran straight away without any problems even at 208/83, 225/75 and 250/83 MHz. I am currently using it on my ABIT IT5V at 225/75 MHz with 64 MB SDRAM.

Before you start bombarding me with emails, asking why I used 205/68 instead of 200/66, or 166/66 instead of 171/86, I would like to explain the reason for it. I wanted to show most impressingly, that under some conditions the Pentium MMX 166 is even faster than a slightly tuned Pentium Classic 200 at 205/68. Hence I used the slowest Pentium MMX to compete against the fastest official Pentium Classic at turbo frequency.

Windows Applications

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Benchmark(System: ABIT IT5V, 32 MB SDRAM, Diamond Stealth 64 Video VRAM w/2 MB)Pentium MMX205/68Pentium Classic205/68Pentium MMX166/66
Business Winstone 97 (@1024x768x256x60)44.340.141.2
High-End Winstone 97 (@1024x768x256x60)19.517.317.5
Business Graphics Winmark 97 (@1024x768x65536x75)55.145.149.8
High-End Graphics Winmark 97 (@1024x768x65536x75)28.624.225.3

The most impressive performance Advantage of the new Pentium MMX CPUs are reached when running normal Windows applications. At the same CPU speed, the Pentium MMX shows a performance advantage of 16% over the Pentium Classic. This is only achieved by the new cache size and design, the branch prediction unit, the enlarged pipeline and all the other enhancements besides MMX. The performance advantage could be much bigger with image processing applications that are using the new MMX instructions.

For people who are using lots of Windows business applications, the Pentium MMX is certainly worth getting. Even the Pentium MMX 166 is already 5% faster than a maxed out Pentium Classic 200 at 205/68 MHz.

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Direct3D Tunnel Benchmark RAMP (@640x480x256) [fps]18.618.715.0
Direct3D Tunnel Benchmark RGB (@640x480x256) [fps]9.04.17.6
Direct3DTest RAMP - Fill Rate [mpps]5.895.415.09
Direct3DTest RAMP - Polygon Throughput [kpps]150.29142.00133.25
Direct3DTest RAMP - Intersection Throughput [kpps]1.231.191.04
Direct3DTest RGB - Fill Rate [mpps]5.411.464.57
Direct3DTest RGB - Polygon Throughput [kpps]165.17172.37139.18
Direct3DTest RGB - Intersection Throughput [kpps]1.000.320.84
Direct3D FlipCube Benchmark - RAMP (@640x480x256) [fps]767676
Direct3D FlipCube Benchmark - RGB (@640x480x256) [fps]764976
Direct3D Twist Benchmark - RAM (@640x480x256) [fps]42.042.038.5
Direct3D Twist Benchmark - RGB (@640x480x256) [fps]26.016.022.0
Winbench 97 DirectDraw/Animate Screen Size 1280x1024 [pixels drawn]42.435.638.3
Winbench 97 DirectDraw/Fill Color Depth 8 Bit Color [pixels drawn]252252252
  • Super_Nova
    Can it play Crysis?
    Reply
  • remingtonh
    Crysis was designed to take full advantage of the NEW MMX instructions. Intel MMX technology - see it, hear it, experience it.
    Reply