BP6 at 133Mhz FSB, no 1/2 AGP divider Via CPU 1GHz@133Mhz

[Wolfram]

How feasible is it to run a BP6 running at 133Mhz FSB?

I have PC133 RAM, and am considering upgrade to a Via C3 CPU, which is fast, and come in 2 flavours 100Mhz FSB and 133Mhz. Only uni-processor operation I'm afraid, but for most things single fast CPU, will be much quicker than my 2x450@100Mhz FSB Celerons.

Although the Via C3 has better caches than the Celereon, at the higher multiples memory performance will be a drag, so I am wondering if 133Mhz FSB is a good option. As far as I can see that means a 33% overclock on the AGP card

Rob

You might get problems with your AGP card. My old GF2MX had no problems with 89 Mhz AGP, but my current GF3 can´t stand it.

I´m not sure about the performance of the C3 (Ezra). If you check out some reviews, ie

http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/02q2/020605/index.html

you see it is not too far behind the Celeron. BUT all reviews I´ve seen tested it on the VIA PLE133 chipset- with its integrated graphics- not on the Intel BX. From what I´ve seen for the former Samuel and Samuel2 cores, the old C3 was _much_ slower than the Celeron ( C3 at 667 Mhz about as fast as a Celeron 366 (!)).

So I´d expect that the Celeron Coppermine would perform much better with the faster BX chipset and a decent graphics card, while the C3 1GHz might be a disappointment.

By the way: If you consider leaving SMP behind, why don´t you think of getting a Celeron 566 or 600 and overclock it to 850/900?

Regards,

Wolfram

PS: One thing I forgot- IIRC the VIA C3 Ezra needs 1,35V VCore- and the BP6 only goes down to 1,5V.

[Wolfram]

The Samuel2 had a Level2 cache, too (64kb)

http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1396&p=3

but the poor design ruined its performance

http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1396&p=13

That´s why I assumed the Ezra might be slower than the reviews suggested.

One of the attractions of the Via C3, is the low heat output, folk are running these things with passive heat sinks, and no noisy fan!

Whilst the BP6 Users Guide, does not say what the minimum voltage is, I tried to see what the lowest it was go, using Soft Menu, and it said 1.30V. Have you any reason to disbelieve that figure the BIOS showed?

I absolutely agree on the low heat issue. That´s what makes the CPU attractive (and the low price).

The voltage thing was just from my memory (couldn´t reboot the machine to check it). No doubt that it is capable to provide 1.3V if the BIOS says so.

Regards,

Wolfram