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Hardware

Cyrix's 'Joshua' announcement 213

Posted by Hemos from the trying-to-redeem-themselves dept.
h0rus writes, "One of the guys from Ars went to Cyrix's unveiling of their new x86 chip, the Cyrix III (codenamed "Joshua"), and wrote up a summary of what was announced. The chip looks like a pretty sweet budget/mobile x86 option: 64K L1, 256K L2, dual-pipelined FPU, Socket 370 compatible, and not clock-locked. Maybe Cyrix can redeem their name with this one. "
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Cyrix's 'Joshua' announcement More

Cyrix's 'Joshua' announcement

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  • Saw stuff on this back on VIA's site a while ago...i think they absorbed Cyrix, but is going to continue to market them as Cyrix chips. Overclocking is a plus! The should be decent but hopefully the fight by Untel will no go through against VIA, seeing as how they own Cyrix
    JediLuke
  • Sounds good... I'd like to see more companies in the processor market. Prices have been artificially high due to lack of competition lately.

    ps: has /. always required 70 seconds between posts?

    Make Seven
  • I wouldn't buy a Cyrix chip either, but it is always a good thing to have another competitor against Chipzilla.
    -
  • i think they absorbed Cyrix
    yes they did.

    Make Seven
  • I've never seen a cyrix machine seem to work properly. I don't know if it's just been the configuration there, or what. My friends cyrix p200 (supposedly as fast as a pentium 200) ran as fast as my pentium 133 when playing games, etc.

    Don't know if things have changed recently though.
  • I had a Cyrix p133 (110mhz) for a while and it ran great. No problems with dos/win95/os2/linux/nt whatsoever. Other than the sucky FPU performance in games it was great. For the average person to check email and browse the web I don't see anything wrong with them. At the time it has a LOT cheaper than the equivelent pentium.

  • About Cyrix. . . (Score:5)

    by WD ( 96061 ) on Thursday February 24, 2000 @01:47PM (#1247359)
    Don't get me wrong here. . . I'm very glad Cyrix is here. As we've learned from AMD, more competition = better products at better prices!

    BUT, Cyrix has a habit of over-hyping products that seem to fall flat in the end. I was a 6x86 owner, since it was all I could afford at the time. The Cyrix name has been tarnished by chips with incompatibility and performance issues from the beginning.
  • Maybe someone can correct me, but I thought Cyrix stopped making x86 chips about a year ago. As memory serves, they sold their x86 division and dedicated to embeded chips for appliances.

    or am i just crazy??

  • Did anyone really expect the Bible name references? Or were you secretly hoping that the codename was a nod to the cult classic starring Matthew Broderick, "WarGames". Of course, I don't remember if there was a character || actor by the name of Samuel in that movie cause then maybe the guys at Ars just weren't thinking of WOPR. I know that everytime I hear the name Joshua, I think of Professor Falken.

    Oh well. It would have been cool though.

  • FPU performance (Score:3)

    by MinaInerz ( 25726 ) on Thursday February 24, 2000 @01:50PM (#1247365) Homepage
    Cyrix's typical problem, just like AMD had until the Athlon, was its dismal floating point unit. Intel's fully pipelined FPU made the AMD/Cyrix/Winchips, etc, look really bad, and as such, since the Pentium, they've always been "value" CPUs, and not "performance" CPUs. Now I've yet to see official benchmarks on the VIA Joshua processor, but from people who have seen some of the pre-production chips, it doesn't look too promising.

    I'm guessing that this chip will be a decent competitor to the K6 series of CPUs, but maybe that's just wishful thinking - Cyrix CPUs have traditionally had some unusual defects in them, that even later steppings didn't fix.

    "Human beings were created by water to transport it uphill."
  • I've got a cyrix chip in my car's mp3 player (soon to be radar detector monitor and engine status recorder) because it was the sheapest chip I could buy and I wondered if they suck as bad as everyone says. My MX/2-300 or whatever the heck it is sucks as much as everyone says they do. It's super hot all the time, and not nearly as fast as other socket-7 chips at the same clock speed. I had to underclock it just to get the system running stably (and to keep the outrageous power consumption down). I really hope cyrix gets their next chip working better, 'cause choices are always a Good Thing.

  • Cyrix user (Score:3)

    by Pike ( 52876 ) on Thursday February 24, 2000 @01:52PM (#1247367) Journal
    My current computer is a "PR" 166 Cyrix chip. This (non-mediaGX) system is very trusty and reliable, but not incredibly fast. I did build a mediaGX system once, and man that thing was not only slow and ugly, it gave me all kinds of stupid problems besides the fact that the first motherboard they sent was defective.

    My next machine, after I have worn this one out plenty, will be a Crusoe-powered laptop. I have seen the light: the days of big, ugly tower cases for workstation users are numbered. Traditional cases make sense for servers, but hey! who needs expansion slots or serial ports anymore? Most of the technology has plateued and doesn't need to be upgraded often anymore (cpu speed, sound cards, video cards, ethernet, etc.) So why not by a small, fast mobile laptop??

    This chip is mildly interesting but it doesn't look like it will be able to compete anywhere. It's main use will probably be as an upgrade to old PGA machines at some point. Quite a narrow market.

    JD
  • Well, that is true to an extent I guess. At some point though a "Bad" competitor is actually GOOD for Intel. An example of this is how good Cyrix chips made the competing products from Intel look.

    --
    Gellor
  • I've had decent experiences with Cyrix chips running business apps. In fact, gaming aside, I think that the previous Cyrix lines have been ideal for the email/web browsing/word processing set. Adding a good FPU can only make these cheap...er, inexpensive chips a viable contender in other markets as well.
  • I'm not concerned about Cyrix's performance vs Intel's low end stuff, I think it's cool that you could probably overclock one of those .18 puppies a good 60%, but what's more important is that cyrix is still alive to power cool things like the webpad and other integrated handheld devices. i know transmeta will be wonderful and great and all those things, but i doubt we'll see anything from them until november or december, and whatever that is, it will still be a 1st gen device. Cyrix has a little lead on the appliance pc market.

    let's be honest, we all know that there is nothing impressive about a cyrix cpu powerwise, but if you consider that they're working on something that has video,sound and networking builtin, then you have something that may even power your cell phone in a year...

  • I'm trying to remember when they had "name" they could redeem. As long as I can remember cyrix chips have been flaky.

    I'm no expert, but I've always had crappy luck.

    -FP

  • Good read, Cyrix may have a chance (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Good read on Ars as usual. I've been following some of the Joshua developments, and I commend them for not reporting pure hype. The reserved conclusions are well placed. The comments on the PR are right on. Why on earth do they keep using this scheme? I think it belittles their product, and it insults customers as well!

    Cyrix has really unimpressed me for the last several years. This new parenting by Via may be the one thing that saves them. Dual issue FPU and a full speed L2 cache twice the size of the Celeron could make this a very nice CPU indeed.

  • I really hope this works out well for them. Down with the Intel monkeys! Down! I think its time for a new chip monopoly in town.
  • Pentium. Celeron. Itanium.
    Athlon.
    VIA Cyrix III.

    At least they got that right.

    I've heard horror stories about Cyrix chips too.
    Mainly that linux users stopped having problems when they switched from Cyrix to AMD.

    Curiously, I have heard horror stories about AMD as well. Some of the remaining OS/2 users have foudn that they stop having problems when they switch from AMD Cyrix.

    I'm not proud - I'll run whatever chip I can get my hands on :) And the competition is a Good Thing. Maybe I'll never use a Cyrix III, but I may benefit from it anyway.
  • If you are my friend, moderate this up! [;

  • A rant and a wierd idea (Score:5)

    by cybergremlin ( 136962 ) on Thursday February 24, 2000 @02:02PM (#1247377)
    First of all the PR raiting scam is just that, a scam. When I sold PCs customers would look at a cyrix233 and think that it ran at 233MHz. They would then see sub par proformance on a game that wanted a high MHz rated pentum and think that they got a lemon. What they did not understand (often even after a lengthy expanation) was that the chip did NOT actualy run at 233MHz. These cyrix emachines were embarasing to have on the sales floor. The constantly crashed and blew chunks when it came to game play. End of rant

    Second Item
    Here is an interesting idea (altho I doubt that it will ever happen): Motorola could buy cyrix (or better yet Transmeta) and gain access to the x86 market. They already make the chips for Macs, Palms, and many wireless devices. Transmeta looks like it may present a threat to Motorola's handhend dominance. This is especialy true if the Transmeta's chip can be set up to emulate a 68000, the chip that Motorola makes for the PalmPilot. Right now everytime someone buys a Palm Pilot it is money in Motorola's pocket. There are plenty of reasons not to do this of course (like cyrix's rep stinks to high heaven and no one has made it profitable) and I dont think the Motorola is in the mood for a radical change to their product line.

  • I sure hope this chip is better than the previous ones released by them. The non-clock lock seems like a brilliant idea for overclockers/tweakers. I'm still wondering if the front side bus speed is unlocked. It might be in there best interest to sell them multiplier/FSB unlocked and put a good core on the chip. It might even beat the celeron at overclockability! If only Crusoe was for the desktop ::sigh:: =)

  • SMP? (Score:2)

    by night ( 28448 )
    Anyone know if these chips will SMP on an ABIT
    BP-7 (s370) or similiar. I'd love to run a cheap
    dual 500 with a >=100 Mhz FSB without overclocking.

  • I was thinking the same thing. There was no Samuel in WarGames that I know of. It would have been quite a stretch for Cyrix to name a processor after the WOPR anyway. It would probably take about 10 minutes to ask if you'd like to play a game. And the really fast Tic-Tac-Toe...

    It could be worse, I suppose... The AMD K6II could have been named after a supercomputer...

  • Cyrix? Oh... I remember them (Score:5)

    by Chemical ( 49694 ) <nkessler2000&hotmail,com> on Thursday February 24, 2000 @02:15PM (#1247384) Homepage
    I remember when I went to Fry's to get some new components. The salesman (ever talk to a sales person at Fry's BTW) told me to go with the Cyrix 6x86 166 instead of a genuine Intel Pentium. He said that they cost less, offer full compatability, and offer better performance than Intel.

    It turned out only one of these things were true. It did indeed cost less. But then again you get what you pay for. I remember I had such a hard time with a lot of software, only to call up tech support and find out that the product isn't Cyrix compatable or it needed a patch or something. One peice of hardware I bought (soundcard or something) turned out to be incompatable with Cyrix processors. Not only that, but performance was terrible. Sure it was a nice upgrade from my 486, but compared to actual Intel machines I used, it was pretty bad. Not only that, I found out later that their 6x86 '166' wasn't actually 166Mhz. It ran at 133 and had "special features that make it run as fast as if it were 166Mhz". What a clever marketing scheme. Intel should do that too: Come out with the Pentium 1.2Ghz that only runs at 800Mhz but has "special features" so it runs as fast as if it were 1.2Ghz.

    In conclusion, I vowed to never buy another Cyrix processor as long as I may live. I advise others to do the same, and not to believe their hype. Remember what they delivered in the past, and that history often repeats itself.

  • Linux offered a Unix-type operating system with fully available source code that you were free to modify to your heart's content. Not only that, it was GPLed - any work that you contributed couldn't be swiped by someone else and used as part of their commercial product. Linux offered something new and exciting. And free, of course.

    Cyrix on the other hand - well. A Cyrix processor isn't any more free than an Intel one in either meaning of the word. If they were releasing the chip design so that anyone could attempt to improve it then I'd see your point, but as it is all Cyrix really has over Intel is that they're probably guilty of fewer grossly immoral activities. It's not a paradigm shift in the same way that Linux promised to be.
  • Cyrix has always made chips. They used to be independent and had to get their chips made by the likes by ibm but then they were bought out by National Semiconductor.. they introduced the M2 at around this time, I believe, and dropped ibm and moved to the national Semi fabs. The M2's flopped (sort of) and National Semi lost a lot of money and decided to get out of the business. The only thing they made money on was the MediaGX processor, which was a really cheap chip that combined graphics and audio with the processor and National Semi used these as part of their WebPad reference designs. When Natinal jumped ship from the chips business, they sold Cyrix and all of its patents, trademarks, etc. to Via except for the MediaGX chip. So Cyrix still makes x86 chips, as part of Via, but National Semiconductor no longer makes x86 chips unless you count the MediaGX.. National are now dedicated to the embedded chips market..
  • So, with a name like Joshua, will it finally let me nuke the Russians?
    ________________________________
  • Why not buy a small, fast laptop? Well, price first of all...while you can get low to mid range laptops pretty cheap nowadays, the sort of laptop I'd want as a desktop replacement will still fall in the $3000-$4000 range.

    The main thing for me about laptops has always been the fact that if something blows up, I can't just run down to the local computer shop and pick up a replacement part. I have the same issue with integrated-in-the-mobo stuff...if my motherboard's built-in sound blows, I don't want to have to buy another motherboard; I want to buy another sound card and be done with it. I own a p166 laptop, and I'm extremely careful with it because I don't want to have to send it off to "my nearest authorized Fujitsu repair center" to get it fixed.

    Hardware modularity is good. Integration is bad.

  • Remember a little chip called the K5? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    And I must say it sucked as well... but AMD soon after came out with the K6 (a great chip in it's own right) that at the time was faster than a Pentium *and* a Pentium Pro. And to think I just picked up a new one for only $20.00 (266).. Thats alot of power for a little money. And lets not go into the K7... This is a company that has redeemed themselfs with great products.
  • Prices have been artificially high due to lack of competition lately.

    What are you talking about? Stuff is so amazingly cheap these days, chip prices included. Neither intel nor AMD are making huge profit margins - they're both despearately trying to undercut each other. Sure, cyrix making chips too isn't a bad thing - more options and all that, but I don't think they're going to be able to drive prices down all that much farther.
  • What sort of fabrication process are they using? The specs say that it will run off of 2.2V, but they are using a 0.18um process to make it -- are they trying to melt their chips?
    Intel's .25um process originally designed to run with 1.8V, and their .18um chips are running on 1.6V and 1.65V -- why is this cyrix chips running with such a high voltage?
  • The thing that really put the nail in the coffin for me with Cyrix was reading about a guy who had a Cyrix machine and he bought an AWE64. The Cyrix didn't like the AWE64 and the system wouldn't boot. After going thru everything he could think, weeks of testing and hours on the tech supprt lines to different places, he calls Cyrix. Their response? "Oh yeah, we're not compatible with the AWE64, get a different sound card. No, we're not planning on fixing it. Bye."

    I'm not too impressed by that, even if they put out a 5GHz chip that made the Athlon look like a Penitum 3 I don't think I'd want to get something that was all-integrated with no support at all for anyone who wants to add their own components...

    Esperandi
    Hasn't bought a "system" since he was 12, its just been parts and upgrades since then.
  • They said their 686 chips outperformed similar Intel chips. They even showed graphs that proved it to me visually. I have actually owned two, and
    both were nowhere near the performance of my Intel and AMD chips.

    Lying is the most abhorrent thing in the universe.
    It has brought dishonor on the marketers and their families, and it is my hope that a plague of 1000 years falls upon them for their froghearted schemes.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I'm just wondering if you know that calling it a PR 166 was a PR move by Cyrix? It's a 133MHz chip. yet another reason to gag at the mention of the name Cyrix, if you needed one.

    Esperandi
    MediaGX boards most certinaly have their uses though, for in-car MP3 players they sing. Like $2 for a mobo and processor and you don't have to worry about incompaitiblity because you're using it like Cyrix wanted you to - no extra hardware to mess things up!
  • Only for you. You see, no one wants to hear from you so as a service to everyone, Slash includes code to limit your connection speed. For everyone else, it flys.

    Make Seven

  • Re:Go Cyrix! (Score:5)

    by Manaz ( 46799 ) on Thursday February 24, 2000 @02:37PM (#1247405) Homepage
    On the contrary - I think it's time the old monopoly was closed down, and we were introduced to something we haven't had in a LONG time in the consumer PC processor market - choice.

    Cyrix/Via (with Joshua), AMD (with the K6-3/K6-2+) and Intel (with the Celeron) it would appear now ALL have Celeron-class (for want of a better term)processors in the marketplace - for the first time - all aimed at consumers.

    While AMD and Intel are battling it out in the medium-high end market (P3 & Athlon) and AMD are soon to release top end processors to compete with Intel's Xeons, we now have a 3 way (and possibly 4 way if you include Transmeta) battle for the low end market.

    We should be getting better products for less money as a result of this, as each manufacturer attempts to gain market share - and this can only be a good thing.

    Well done Cyrix/Via.
  • Cyrix has had some problems. One big one with the 6x86 line was that the chips required more current than Intel chips. The motherboards were built to meet the demands of the Intel pentiums. The snafu came from the fact that cyrix was a budget chip, but it didn't work in the inexpensive motherboards. Cheap motherboards aren't going to throw in a good power supply for the hell of it. They have just enough to get by, in this case it was just enough for Intel chips. Up to that point, Intel was the only game in town, so it was understandable. This led to stability problems in Cyrix based systems.

    The first system I built was a p150+ (60Mhz bus, 2x multiplier) with a no name HX chipset motherboard. It basically worked ok. When bought a big fan I could overclock it. When I gave it to my mom, I underclocked it to ensure stability.

    It was a fine system for running linux and windows 95. It sucked for quake, but it was good for Descent I and II.
  • If they're competing with the K6 series, they better be selling these things for a pittance. I know my K6-2 350 chip can be had on pricewatch.com for under $35 right now. Unless they're going to sell these Cyrix setups for even less than that or maybe right around there, they'll fail miserably.

    As for the floating point, if it was so all-important, why aren't people bad-mouthing Intel like they bad-mouthed AMD back then? The difference between a Pentium 2 FPU and a K6-2 FPU is LESS than the difference between an Athlon and a Pentium 3, this time the slacking done by Intel.

    Esperandi
    Just looking for equality in the mud-slinging ;)
  • In terms of integer performance, a 133MHz 6x86 is approximately as fast as a Pentium at 166MHz. The FPU performance is distinctly worse, though (along with pretty much every Intel clone up until the Athlon). I don't have any problem with what Cyrix did - they never tried to pretend that the chip wasn't really a 133, but if they'd simply marketed it as a 133MHz Cyrix then nobody would have bought the things. If the Fry's person tried to sell it to you as a 166MHz processor, though, you probably have the right to his first born son. Or something like that.
  • Actually, it does not suck. For most things that consumers do (ie. games, word processing, most media stuff) having a full speed on die L2 of 256K is better than having half speed 512K L2, or 1 or 2 meg bus speed L3. True, for servers its slower, but even for 3D studio MAX, rendering times increase less than 10 percent going from a 512K PIII to a 1meg Zeon. For consumer apps, going to 256K (like the new coppermine PIIIs) on die full speed is acutally about 10-20% faster than the old half speed on card 512K L2.
  • Well, they seem to be aiming at the portable market... and these are not going to be bare chips you can plug into a mobo, they're going to be combos with sound/video/networking all built in. If Cyrix repeats their past performances, attempting to replace any of the default stuff will result in extreme disaster. Sparks and smoke and such.

    Esperandi
  • Actually, back in the heyday of the 6x86 (or maybe 5x86), the fastest pentium out was the vinilla Pentium sans MMX. Back then the performance of Cyrix chips (both FP and Int) were unmatched. Then the Pentium MMX came and brought out a really massive FPU, and Cyrix was left in the dust. The core architecture of the 6x86 is actually faster in integer apps than an equivilant Pentium MMX (maybe even PII) because a 233 MHz Cyrix performs like a 233MHz MMX for integer, but only runs at like 208 MHz or something.
  • Remember that the L2 cache is running at core frequency (like the Celeron), not half speed (like P2/P3's). This means that they'll probably be overclockable, and a nice little toy to play with. Just my 1/50th of a US$
  • How can a chip with 256k L2 cache (on die) and 64k L1 cache only have 2.2 million transistors?!?!

    Athlons have around 20 million or so. I think my celeron is around 8 or 9 million. My pentium mmx was around 3 million.

    Just doesn't seem right.
  • Finally I get some recognition here. Glad to see more info on this processor. What a great name for it! Finally they name something after me! I feel so honored.

    _joshua_
  • Why vow something stupid like that? Companies have turned around before (ahem AMD!), and remember, Cyrix is under a new owner. When it comes out, read the reviews. If it is faster and cheaper, buy it! No reason to make a vow against it!
  • I don't understand all the people saying how Transmeta is competition to Intel, even at the low end. If you hadn't read the specs, even the 700MHz version, offers pretty bad FP performance compared to a P6 architecture. It has good integer performance, but in low end consumer space, thats irrelevant. Most apps that really need power are FP based and a chip with an FPU that can't match a 500MHz Celeron definately won't compete. Transmeta is for lightweight portables, nothing more.

  • Re:2.2V, 0.18um (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What sort of fabrication process are they using? The specs say that it will run off of 2.2V, but they are using a 0.18um process to make it -- are they trying to melt their chips?

    As I understand the NatSemi process that VIA is using to fab Joshua, $L_{eff}$ is supposed to be 180nm, but the pitch of the metal layers is based off of a 220nm process. This 0.18um process is not even comparable to AMD's or Intel's.

  • Here are some *BETA* benchmarks (Score:3)

    by Lethal_Geek ( 156349 ) on Thursday February 24, 2000 @02:53PM (#1247419)
    FiringSquad has a benchmark of q3.

    FiringSquad's Article [firingsquad.com]

    Too bad this cyrix chip looks as bad as the others, even though the silicon is still beta. I doubt this thing will be on the same level as a Celeron. Unless it is alot cheaper to get ahold of, I'd say screw Cyrix as always. :( Lethal Geek

  • I just want to clear up some of the confusion some people are having about Cyrix and their FPUs. In the past, Cyrix chips were the fastest you could buy, in integer OR fpu. It wasn't until the Pentium MMX and its pipelined FPU that the Cyrix name became synonomous with crappy FPU performance.
  • hmm..ive never had any problems with my MII chips which runs GREAT. its running on a low load 24/7 fileserver with sleep mode on and autowakeup running linux (RH5.2)...ive never had any problems with it and it doesnt require a cpu fan like those intel monsters.
  • and while not ultra fast, they are cheap and they DO work.

    --
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Yeah, I had the EXACT same experience.No more Cyrix for me.
    It sounds like you might enjoy this new site I've just started working on: Frysucks.com

  • For what it's worth (Score:4)

    by Bryan Ischo ( 893 ) on Thursday February 24, 2000 @03:41PM (#1247431) Homepage
    I have built two systems with Cyrix chips:

    1) A PR-200 in July of 1997 for my sister as a wedding present. It is still running strong and they use it almost every day. When I ask them if they want to upgrade, they ask why. Seems that the Cyrix 200 is still fast enough for them. Even Tomb Raider III runs well on it (with the original VooDoo card that I put in it).

    2) An MII-300 last year for my neighbor, in a system that I gave them as a gift. They think it's plenty fast also.

    Neither have had any problems whatsoever, except for the MII-300 which started crashing a few months after I foolishly overclocked it to 333. I clocked it back down to 300 and it was fine.

    Also, my friend built a system with a PR-166 years ago that still works great (although it seems slow as molasses now).

    Cyrix have great integer performance and a phenomenal price/performance ratio. Sure their floating point is lousy (or at least was), but who cares? So what if my Quake III can't draw frames faster than my monitor refresh? Even a Cyrix 200 is a decent gaming platform for most people.

    BTW I am an AMD guy myself, have a K6-233, K6-2 300, and K6-III 400. Next upgrade will be an Athlon, of course.
  • Except that they were already bought out by VIA, as the article said.

  • cyrix chips are damn good for the price!!! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I have been using cyrix chips since the 387. Ive used the 387, 486dx2-80, the 5x86-120, the 6x86-pr150, and the cyrix M2-300. Never have had a problem with one. Of course the FPU is sub par, but for a linux machine, they kick ass!! Ive had my M2 uptime for over 6 months without one reboot, running distributed nets rc5 client the whole time. have not had one glitch.. and for the whopping 30 dollars I paidfor it back in june of last year, I can't complain at all.. And the performance kicks ass as well(note this is not a game machine, it is a server).. Oh yea I have also run game servers on it as well including quake2/quake3/half-life etc.. not a problem.. So I for one am looking forward to building another kick ass server from a cheap cyrix chip...
  • I think that's a typo. According to this page [firingsquad.com] at Thresh's, the number is 22 million. I think that sounds a lot better.
  • I haven't been incredibly happy with Cyrix either. I'm a not-so-proud owner of two Cyrix MediaGX boxes that can't reliably run Linux, Win95-98, or NT 4.0. These boxes are the most worthless pieces of trash I've ever bought.

    I paid less than $50 a piece for these ~200Mhz boxes and I still feel like it's a total rip-off. I know Alan Cox has a couple of them...I wonder what he thinks of them.

    numb
  • Most of the technology has plateaued? Don't be so pessimistic dude!
  • Before I bought a PR233 there were some issues with Linux and Cyrix. This made me paranoid about it. I searched for info and found a page about patches for Cyrix--which were last updated about 6mos prior. Not having installed Linux or used it, I had no idea what I'd do with such patches if they were necessary. I asked on comp.os.linux.install or something about Linux and Cyrix, and got several replies from happy campers with the same generation of Cyrix chip and even earlier --nobody said "DOn't go there"

    So I did. I installed Linux RH5.0 and leaving aside RH5.0's foibles, things worked flawlessly. That was March 1998, so the guinea pig is old enough to vote now.

    New Cyrix cpus from Via, well I'm a K7 person now. But I look forward to hearing about how they do. Could make a good "book" style mini PC for LAN stations.

  • Could one run duel processors with this new chip? It might make up for it's lack of power by having 2, plus since cost is a factor, it would be even better.
  • You're an AMD guy, but you buy your friends Cyrix? That is soooooo evil!!!

  • The Cyrix FPU was poor, as was AMDs. I'm not sure if Cyrix could beat the non-MMX intel chips, but after using many chips I have come to these conclusions..

    • 6510@1MHz is slower than 80286@8MHz
    • Doom could be played with 80386@16MHz
    • AMD PR-166 @ 200MHz equals to Pentium 166
    • Pentium MMX 200 @ 250MHz is faster than Cyrix MII-300 (as a server Cyrix MII-300 was faster)
    • Upgrading system to AMD K6-II 400 didn't make games more playable (had to buy a new 3d-card)
    • My friends always have faster computers than I can afford

    Cyrix MII is/was amazing with integers, hope that their new CPU is good with FPU too, otherwise they don't got a chance to compete with other chips on the market.

  • Re:SMP? (Score:3)

    by florin ( 2243 ) on Thursday February 24, 2000 @04:22PM (#1247444)
    You can probably forget SMP. Neither Cyrix nor any of the other X86 clone makers has ever made any chips that included the local APIC (Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller) component that is necessary for Intel style multiprocessing. You need this to be able to allow more than one CPU to handle interupts. Since Intel reserved all rights to that technology strictly, AMD and Cyrix agreed on a competing standard instead and called it OpenPIC. But unfortunately so far no chips or motherboards ever materialised that adhered to that specification. If this chip has any sort of multiprocessing ability, which I seriously doubt, it likely won't be compatible with the Abit's I/O APIC.

    There's a small chance that the combined sum of the various technology exchanges that VIA, Cyrix and in particular National Semiconductors have had with Intel over the years might have changed this, though. Look at how Cyrix is assuming that those crosslicenses are transfered onto them now that they were first bought by NS and then VIA. That's why they're using Intel's GTL+ bus, for instance, which AMD never dared. Maybe NS owned rights to the APIC too. But still that's all too late for Joshua's design anyway, and actually someone asked a Cyrix support person about this a while back and she said pretty sure no SMP.

  • Re:FPU performance (Score:3)

    by dan the person ( 93490 ) on Thursday February 24, 2000 @04:27PM (#1247445) Homepage Journal
    http://www.viatech.com/products/cyr3faq.htm
    . Will the VIA Cyrix® III work in a multi-processor motherboard?
    A. The VIA Cyrix® III will not work in a multi-processor motherbaord unless it is the only
    processor installed. If the motherboard supports the 2.2V core voltage and FSB, then it will
    work in a stand alone configuration.
  • Most of the technology has plateued and doesn't need to be upgraded often anymore (cpu speed, sound cards, video cards, ethernet, etc.) Well, on the sound card issue, I still need a full-length ISA slot no matter what computer I upgrade to unless I keep my old monster around for some reason; however, if I'm going to upgrade, it will probably be for better music capabilities. One of my soundcards is an old Roland LAPC-1. Why do I keep this ancient piece of hardware? One reason: Nothing sounds like it. Because it has analog synthesis built-in, along with those neato Roland filters, it just makes sounds sweeter, cleaner, and just plain differently than any digital equipment can. Groovy, baby. That, and the SoundBastard's one-MIDI-device-at-a-time limitation sucks...the LAPC-1 can at least do multiple outs (three).
  • Odd. I own a total of four MediaGX based systems and am happy with them. Two are POS/IS boards normally seen in x86 cash register setups, and while their performance (at 166) isn't stellar, I can't beat them in terms of size or price. One is a NEC-made subnotebook, clocked all the way up, and bought for a song. The last is a Cyrix-made baby-AT. All run Linux well. One of the POS boards has a 73 day uptime, and only that short because I updated the kernel. They aren't designed to run games, nor crunch spreadsheets. Cyrix was trying to play a 1998 Transmeta: Medium duty, low power consumption mobile computers. And they do that well.

    On a side note, your GX boxen wouldn't happen to be US Design Concept's GX Lite's, would they?? Updating the BIOS helps, but they just plain suck.
  • No http://www.viatech.com/products/cyr3faq.htm
  • Yeah, but if you look at the Celeron benchmarks there, they don't make any sense either. How come the higher the quality gets, the higher the frame rate gets? I'm having doubts about these guys' ability to run a decent benchmark.

    m
  • How many time must i say this, No SMP http://www.viatech.com/products/cyr3faq.htm Q. Will the VIA Cyrix® III work in a multi-processor motherboard? A. The VIA Cyrix® III will not work in a multi-processor motherbaord unless it is the only processor installed. If the motherboard supports the 2.2V core voltage and FSB, then it will work in a stand alone configuration.
  • On the contrary - I think it's time the old monopoly was closed down, and we were introduced to something we haven't had in a LONG time in the consumer PC processor market - choice.

    Yeah, but all the choices suck =). I don't mean to sound harsh, but there is not a compiler hacker on this planet who likes the x86 architecture... Moreover, the choice will be short-lived, as Intel starts flooding the channels with Merc, er, Itaniums. It will take a while for anyone else to implement the IA64 instruction set; until then we're stuck with (admittedly low-cost) x86 clones.

    One thing that struck me about the Transmeta announcement was their huge emphasis on x86 binary compatibility. From a consumer's point of view, they're right on target - but as a hacker I'm quite sad to realize the true extent of the damage Intel's years-long monopoly wrought. We won't be free from the Ghost of 8088 for a long while...

    Yes, let's have choice... Somebody start working on an Alpha, Sparc, or PowerPC clone!

  • Hmm, depends how obscure the reference is ... could be a cyborg reference to Angus Thermopyle in the Gap series by Stephen Donalson ...
  • Whoa, MII is way ahead of what I'm talking about. The MII is technically the 6x86MX, the version after the Cyrix 6x86. Back in the 6x86 days, Pentium MMXs didn't even exist, and the 6x86 FPU and integer unit whopped anything available. Think 1995-1996 and you have the idea.
  • True, but I'm poor. would you give me a job? please?

    Make Seven
  • FLAMEBAIT?!? 90% of the posts in reply to this story are talking about how terrible Cyrix has been in the past! I've never complained about moderation before, but this is completely ridiculous. I did not post this as a troll or to get flamed, I posted it because Cyrix's service is worse than their chips and if they don't improve that, whatever chip they produce won't matter!

    Esperandi
  • Please, cyrix, for your own good, just /change/ the name. As some earlier posts pointed out, cyrix's were not really bad I have used have provperformers. However, all cyrix's en to be extremely unreliable. I'm not sure if this is due to the chip design itself, or simply the fact that it was often found in cheap pc's with cheap components. It's beside the point anyways. Cyrix has become interchangeable with "crappy." So, the obvious solution is clear: change the damn name. One more thing, a good idea would be to drop the weird mumbo jumbo- remember how the old ones were marketed, for example,as a 6x86+ 200MHz+ (actually running at a much slower clockspeed). Anyone who sold cyrix's in a computer store should know how confusing that naming scheme was to customers.

    --

  • I forgot that most people play games and things...since I don't ever play quake I guess my video and sound demands are lower. My cheap $16 sound card stopped working when I switched to Linux and I really haven't missed it. Don't really need Voodoo3 to play chess! I'm looking for a good computer to run a browser, email, word processor, and of course programming stuff. I always thought programming was better than most games but that's just an opinion.

    Other than games, graphics-intensive stuff, or other multimedia, I don't know what you'd need a $4000 laptop for. I will probably get a docking station for the added comfort when I'm at home, however.

    At my job, a major AEC firm [ellerbebecket.com], most of the salaried workers are being given leased thinkpads, and it has worked out just great. Something like that with an eight or nine-hour battery life would suit me just fine thanks :-)

    JD
  • I, along with several others who I noted have replied below, have had experience with a Cyrix chip. My Compaq laptop runs on a Cyrix 233 chip MMX and the only thing I don't like about it is that it's slower than I'd like it to be. Sure, I'm not the expert and so I wouldn't be able to properly compare chips, but it performs well enough to do what I want it to do (run *cringe* Winamp, apps like word processors and Paint shop and da dee da). I'd like more RAM to help it out, but that's not possible right now. I will admit that, yes, it's slow.. considerably, but then again, when compared to, say, a Celeron, I would pick the Cyrix anyday because the Celeron has hang-ups (well, at least, the one I'm thinking of does). Yeah, I realize that Celerons, as a whole, aren't good processors (as far as I know), but.. that's just an example of at least one processor to prefer after a Cyrix....
  • So, with a name like Joshua, will it finally let me nuke the Russians?

    For those of you who are left scratching your heads at this joke, Joshua was the name of the computer in the movie Wargames. It was offically known as the WOPR, but its creator called it Joshua.
    ____________________
    Tension, apprehension
    And dissension have begun

  • Whether or not Intel looks good doesn't matter as much as whether or not some other company is taking away some of Intel's market share.

    Cyrix's chips may be lousy for gamers or people doing heavy scientific computing due to lackluster FPU performance, but for the low-end market Cyrix is aiming at, that isn't such a big deal. If you just want to do web browsing, email and a little word processing, the Cyrix M-II's provide an excellent value. While that may not include a lot of geeks, there are a lot of people like my wife who the M-II is perfect for. I bought an M-II/300 for my wife, and she is more than happy with it. Personally, for me I prefer AMD processors (specifically my main box is K6 based), but I really don't think that Cyrix deserves the harsh treatment they get from a lot of people. Other than the very early Cyrix 6x86 chips that had serious overheating problems, they generally have built a reliable if uninspiring product. Given their excellent price/performance, I think they can be forgiven for a lot, especially since IDT (WinChip), their main competitor for that low-end market has basically given up entirely.

  • I'm sorry, I spotted a couple of typos in there after I posted..oops (the culprit: typeover was toggled on by mistake). Anyways, here's what it should read:

    Please, cyrix, for your own good, just /change/ the name. As some earlier posts pointed out, early cyrix's were not really bad performers. However, all cyrix's I've used have proven to be extremely unreliable. I'm not sure if this is due to the chip design itself, or simply the fact that it was often found in cheap pc's with cheap components. It's beside the point anyways. Cyrix has become interchangeable with "crappy." So, the obvious solution is clear: change the damn name. One more thing, a good idea would be to drop the weird mumbo jumbo- I remember how the old ones were marketed, for example,as a 6x86+ 200MHz+ (actually running at a much slower clockspeed). Anyone who sold cyrix's in a computer store should know how confusing that naming scheme was to customers.


    --

  • That is usually caused by bad memory and/or incorrectly set BIOS parameters or incorrectly set motherboard jumpers. It generally isn't caused by a faulty CPU, and as lots of people I know have successfully installed Linux on Cyrix chips from the 486's to the M-II, I don't think it is fair to blame Cyrix for something that probably isn't their fault.

  • cyrix sucks! (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Yeah well I heard someone once ran a cyrix w/o a cooling fan. Not only did it crash but the thing exploded into a giant mushroom cloud. When he woke up his kidney had been stolen, aliens gave him an anal probe, and his neighbor killed himself by duct taping a rocket engine to the top of his car. I have never actually owned a cyrix chip, but I know they are crap because this story must be true. I will NEVER run a cyrix. I don't care if they are the last chip makers on the planet. I would rather use a slide rule!
  • Come on! Maybe you should do some research about the celerons before bashing them and say a thing like:

    "I would pick the Cyrix anyday because the Celeron has hang-ups"

    How about going to Toms Hardware and see what he thinks of the celerons??

    Well at least, you got one thing right:

    "I'm not the expert and so I wouldn't be able to properly compare chips"
  • Early Cyrix 6x86's did indeed have overheating problems, even in desktop units (you needed a special 'Cyrix-approved' CPU fan/heatsink combos -- one that the fan spins at roughly twice the speed of a normal Pentium fan and the heatsink is about 1/2 again larger in order to get reliable operation). Toshiba made a big mistake putting such chips into laptops, most of which don't have CPU fains at all, and which often run hot even with Intel or AMD CPU's.
    Later 6x86's and the M-II's seem to have fixed their overheating problems by switching to a much smaller die size.

    While your 133 probably wasn't impressive compared to an Intel 133, it probably cost less than 1/2 what an Intel 133 did. You only get what you pay for, and for the money, the Cyrix chips generally have been a pretty good deal unless you are a gamer or do a lot of math intensive work like scientific computing or image processing.

  • the problem with a fast,laptop is that it also means a hot laptop. Hot laptops are no good, they tend to freeze for no reason every so often. Then again, I maybe be wrong and prehaps the crusoe runs cooler than my celeron, but heat is defiently something to think about.
  • But will your K6 series run on a ATX Mobo with a 370 socket?
  • Original Pentiums already had pipelined FPU. MMX has *nothing* to do with FPU. Cyrix has always sucked at FPU and integer performance was not as great as they claimed either. Just 3 month ago I upgraded from my olde crappy Cyrix "PR" 200 (which actually ran at 150) to AMD K6/2-300 and I am seeing a *huge* improvement in speed and, most importantly, *stability*. In addition to being slow, Cyrix CPUs are also very unreliable. I am never buying them again.

    ___
  • Early Cyrix 6x86's have overheating problems. In order to run reliably they require a special 'Cyrix-approved' chip fan/heat sink (fan spins at roughly twice the RPM and the heat sink is about 1/2 again as big as a standard Pentium fan). The 6x86MX and M-II's seem to have fixed those problems. The early chips also require a motherboard with a very good voltage regulator due to their high power consumption. If your Cyrix equipped machine has a cheapo motherboard, a standard Pentium style chip fan or if the BIOS parameters and/or motherboard jumper settings aren't configured correctly, then you may have problems.

    I've had great luck with AMD processors, from the 486's to the K6 family. Most of my friends have recently bought K6-II or K6-III's and all of them are really happy with them including speed and stability. I would wholeheartedly recommend AMD CPUs compared to any similar priced to slightly more expensive Intel CPUs.

  • Other than games, graphics-intensive stuff, or other multimedia, I don't know what you'd need a $4000 laptop for. I will probably get a docking station for the added comfort when I'm at home, however.

    It's all in the screen. Going Active/TFT makes the screen usable for long periods of time. In the past year, I've tried out a number of units (as they come through inventory :-)
    - IBM 365 XD (P120/10"DSTN)
    - AST Ascentia A (P120/12"TFT)
    - NEC Versa 6060 (P166/12"TFT)
    - IBM 380E (P150/12"DSTN)
    - IBM 390X (PII400/15"TFT)

    Guess which one I like the best? I found the AST the most usable, since I could bring it off-site, and work in the evenings, but it's speed was driving me insane. All the others (including the NEC) had horrible displays that were dim & washed out.

    Don't compromise on the screen! If you do, you'll regret it later.

  • There are so many factors to performance it's not funny. You have the classical memory BUS speed, the periferal bus speed ( if you're overclocking, or have a strange multiplier ), you have your MB chipset buffering scheme ( how many delinquent requests can it keep going ). You have the performance of the chipset itself. Of course you have the huge variable of different periferals strenths and weaknesses which pull you every which way but sunday. Then of course you have hardware drivers which tend to be optimized for specific processors ( the norm being intel, but in some circumstances, like AMD's 3DNow for Voodoo's Glide ).

    Then inside / around the CPU you have cache, which is a HUGE variable. You have the raw MHZ speed, you have the pipeline depth, and the latency, both of which are negatively affected by larger caches ( due to address resolution logic ). Then you have the port deth ( how many parallel accesses can the cache access ). And finally the size and bandwidth of the cache. AMD / Cyrix have gone with bigger but lower performance caches, while Intel has gone with more complex but smaller caches. Hypothetically, a larger, simpler cache will be cheaper to design, but will take up more surface area, and thus provide lower yield. To make matters worse, some programs require high speed access to a very small data-set ( and thus benifit Intel ), while other applications just use a lot of data, and anything that minimizes main memory access boosts speed. I believe Quake qualifies for the former, while Office apps ( and scripting languages in general ) benifit the latter.

    AMD and Cyrix also, for a while there, worked at enhancing the internal instruction flow algorithms. Making huge branch prediction buffers, and in the case of Cyrix, producing all sorts of algorithmic optimizations that Intel strangely didn't implement.

    I believe the main reason AMD and Cyrix didn't work as hard at their FPU was because it's a _really_ ugly design project. It's more fun to work on general purpose flow design and playing and tweaking a simplistic cache design, than to get dirty with all the possible combinations of floating point logic ( especially one as ugly as the 8087 family. I believe Intel owns several patents on some highly optimized implementations, so the others would have to devote some big bucks to tweak theirs without violating any laws. Not to mention, making it faster often times means taking up more silicon. Thus you have a larger die ( thus lowering yields ) and the logic is expensive to design / debug / implement to boot.

    The next issue was latency. Intel, with the 80686 line ( I hate their non-informative naming conventions ), went super-pipelined, which worked great for sequential operations, but performed horribly in random branching contexts. AMD and Cyrix both opted for a narrow pipe-depth, with an emphasis on branch prediction. Thus even failed predictions had minimal penalty.

    The fastest possible processor will be non-pipelined and have n-wide execution components. The reason being that each pipeline stage introduces a store and forward delay. Some stages may perform minimal operations, thus wasting 75% of a clock tick. This really hurts data-dependancy delays, since a pipelined FPU might take 15-150% longer to complete a Divide which the very next instruction requires. If all other data-dependacy paths are blocked, all the pipelining in the world won't do you any good. In the integer world, this is very common. I'm about to perform a cache missed memory fetch, but first I must calculate the address. If every other instruction is based on the contents of that memory cell, then pipelining can only hurt this particular case.

    The biggest opponent to complex and optimized operations was that they would slow down the rest of the processor ( by requiring slower clock ticks ). But the device manufacturers are learning how to make different parts of the CPU run at different frequencies. ( They've long since learned how to run the BUS at a fraction of the Core ). Intel's next 80686 processor varient will have a clock doubled integer core, for example.

    Still, the main reason we don't see a return to complex optimizations is that having 32 ADD components is extremly more expensive than having 2 16 deep add components. Even though you'll get a significant performance boost ( assuming you can manage that huge bus, and a potentially large number of register ports ), you probably won't make up for the added expense in shere complexity and yeild loss ( due to extra size ).

    Thus, Intel went for a partially pipelined FPU which had heavy latency penalties, but improved overall operations ( especially for non data-dependant operations ).

    AMD Finally headed this off by making multiple independant and fully pipelined FPU's in their Athalon. ( they spent the extra bucks to remove many of the stalling conditions caused by sharing of resources by seperate components ).

    Personally I like SUN's java-multi-threaded CPU concept ( even if it never succeeds ). Basically, you have 4 parallel fully functional, non-related, non-pipelined, fully optimized functional units. There are no resource contention issues, no scheduling problems, a simplified logic design. And it's cheaper because you take away pipelining. The best part is that each of these extrememly simple components are just cookie cuts. You spend all your time tweaking the hell out of one tiny unit, then make 32 copies. Almost as easy as cache design.

    I believe the Crusoe could learn from this. They already have their simplified design, they could take it a step further. Say, keep a single CPU implementation for power-critical devices. Then replicate that core 8, 16 or 32 times for a desk-top varient. Since you can control your wrapper code, you can determine what is the optimal CPU-width. I'm sure there are many cases that would allow you to submit 32 parallel instructions ( at least for the compiler ).

  • the fpu of the intel pentium mmx was pretty similar if not identical to the original pentium.

    pentium mmx vs pentium:
    added more L1 cache, 32k vs 16k (i think, been awhile)

    added mmx instructions, note that these are integer only

    tweaked out some of the superduper scalar out of order supercalifragilistic part of the processor. actually I think the part is called the TLB - translation look ahead buffer.

    All in all I think it was around a 10% to 15% increase in performance at a given clock speed.
    This put the pentium mmx ahead of the 6x86 in integer performance, and smoked it in fp performance.
  • > It's super hot all the time
    Then you failed to use set6x86 [erols.com] to enable suspend-on-HLT. It's the one most important thing to do with Cyrix processors.
    I have myself used 5x86, 6x86 and MediaGXm processors, and they were quite efficient; while they did have slower FPUs than Intel or AMD, the 5x86 at 90mhz actually ran most applications faster than the Pentium II (a brand new one at the time). The best point about Cyrix CPUs imho is that they're all optimized for 486 code. The 6x86 (a 4x25mhz version) was sensitive to overclocking, but ran fine at 4x30 - not at 4x33 though.
  • 2 floating point units 2 MMX units 2 3DNow units 64kB 4-way L1 cache 256kB 8-way full speed on-chip L2 cache (64b interface with a 5-clock latency) The best, most efficient X86 integer unit out there - the Cyrix 686 integer unit. No multiplyer lock, so its compatable with any FSB speed between 66mhz & all the up to nearly 150mhz, if your MoBo & memmory can go that far. Made by VIA, so should be totally compatable & stable on any VIA 133A MoBo (fingers crossed) & finally a PR rating which is 'fair dinkum', & no more than 100 points above its mhz rating (PR500 is 400mhz, PR 533 is 433mhz). Actually Cyrix's PR ratings have always been accurate for their integer units, but was always taken with a grain of salt as far as floating point performance was concerned, plus towards the end of National Semi's stewardship, the gap between the PR rating & mhz was being stretched to the limit. But now with double the L1 cache of the Celeron, double the L2 cache of the Celeron, 2 fully pipelined FPUs, 2 MMX units & 2 3DNow units, the Joshua's PR rating is now on the conservative side. Plus they are dirt cheap, with even the 533 at less than $100. Looks like things don't look too good for Intel (well until Williamette/Foster anyway), what with the Athlon competing at the high end, Joshua at the low end, VIA competing with 133SDRAM chipsets, RAMBUS being too bloody expensive (plus its high latency), poor MTH SDRAM controller performance, Transmeta now being taken on by Taiwanese OEMs on the mobile front & of course with Merced/Itanium looking worse by the day (& with AMDs 64b Sledgehammer looking like it will more than twice as fast, as far as X86 code is concerned).
  • It's a shame, but the PR-rating system was actually a great idea. It could have gotten consumers away from the idea that More Mhz=Faster, which simply isn't true. Now we have manufacturers playing the numbers game, in which "speed demon" chips (Which run at a high clock speed) have an advantage over "braniac" chips (Which do more per clock cycle). We've now cut off a promising avenue of R&D, solely for marketing reasons.

    It's not a problem now, but in the future we could run into a brick wall with Mhz and memory speed limits, which might be solved in part by making Braniac chips. By that time it may not be possible to pursue such chips, because the public will have become fixated on Mhz, and will not buy them.

    When the PR ratings first came out, AMD and Cyrix were pretty conservative in their ratings--AMD even rated one of their 133 Mhz chips as a "PR 75". But with insufficiently rigid definitions of "PR" and no way of enforcing them, "PR" quickly turned into Public Relations. As Cyrix watched their margins and market share shrink, they began to play fast and loose with the ratings. Eventually Cyrix chips matched their Intel counterparts only under the most ideal circumstances. Towards the end Cyrix even moved the goalposts, by quietly redefining "PR" to match the average speed of "competing CPUs" in the market (ie, whoever else was slowest at the time).
  • I would agree that hype is generally a bad thing because it can set unrealistic expectations about a product. I remember when the Pentium 60's came out, and the place I worked for at the time bought several of them. They were real turkeys (FDIV and f00f bugged), especially for the money. I bought an AMD 486DX4-100 about the same time and it performed very similarly to the P60's for considerably less money. And it didn't have a lot of bugs in it either -- it is still working fine to this day (albiet, it hasn't been a machine I use on a daily basis for a long time). When it comes down to it, I almost never recommend that anyone buy something 'early on' unless they have thoroughly researched it and they absolutely need to have the latest thing for some real reason (not just to keep "ahead of the Jones'"). When you buy something that has just come out the price tends to be a lot higher than if you wait until it has been out a while. I prefer to buy one or two notches below the current top end.

  • Here's something you should never ask on /., but just how dumb am I?

    Of the six machines on my home network, I have two Cyrix chips, three AMDs, and one genuine Intel (and that, believe it or not, is my amateur packet radio router running on a 386SX16! AMPR is like a 9600 baud ethernet without collision detection -- a 386SX is up to the job). One of the AMDs is an Athlon, and the Cyrix'es are a pre-MMX 6x86 "PR200" which, of course, runs at 150MHz, and an MII-333.

    I knew the "PR" stuff was BS when I bought them. I bought them because they were cheap. Cheap, cheap, cheap. I'm not a big game player (Civilization is about all I play) and the first 6x86 ran fine for what, four years now? (God help you with Cyrix chips if your CPU fan dies, though!).

    Here's my point: I researched the devices before I bought them. I knew how well they did integer operations, register operations, and floating-point (which I hardly ever use) operations compared with the Intels, and I knew what I would be using them for (mostly writing and compiling C/C++ code on Linux) and I knew how much they cost.

    I haven't had a single problem or compatibility issue.

    Is Cyrix so variable in quality that I had the only two that aren't lemons, or did a lot of people swallow a bunch of marketing BS and buy things they ought not to have bought given their intended use? I'm genuinely asking. I haven't had a single problem. Have I just been lucky?

    Oh yeah, I don't have any MediaGX's despite how cheap they are because I do my homework and for a long time there were Xfree and other issues with that particular cheap chip. That's when I went back to AMD. (My other low end box is an AMD-486DX4 clone that I have running FreeBSD basically to serve up a couple of CDROM drives via NFS -- Another low end machine that remains adequate to its task. I put my "Webmaster in a Nutshell" and my "Java in a Nutshell" deluxe CD-ROMs in it and then use them wherever I am on my network, from desktops to my AMD laptop [sorry, 7 machines, 4 AMDs])

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