by Bubba "Masterfung" Wolford

Everything was looking good and the temperature was great. Let's start 3DMark 99MAX and test this new bus speed.

• 3DMark result: 5295 3DMarks
• Synthetic CPU 3D Speed: 8410

We can see that the CPU is still scaling well in 3DMark 99MAX. A small increase in CPU speed brings a similar increase from 3DMark 99MAX. I noticed that the benchmark numbers reflected a 1 FPS increase, and a 1 FPS increase in Falcon 4.0 would be outstanding. Let's see what happens when I run the PapaDoc benchmark with this 567 MHz CPU.

• PapaDoc Benchmark 800x600: 20.346
• PapaDoc Benchmark 1024x768: 24.148

Well, it was worth hoping for that 1 FPS increase! While we did not make a whole 1 FPS, we did make some headway. The 1024x768 score jumped quite a bit more than the 800x600 score showing that the 2D cockpit eats CPU cycles faster. We are still well over 20 FPS now so I am certainly not complaining. Let's go faster…

This time I changed the bus speed from 100 MHz to 112 MHz and rebooted. It would post at this speed and boot into Windows but when I was running the 3DMark 99MAX, it locked up. Suspecting the voltage since my temperature was fine, I rebooted my machine and adjusted the voltage to 2.05. Ahhh! Much better. Let's post the scores.

First my Sandra 98 CPU benchmark. It showed my CPU was running at 617 MHz! I have eclipsed the 600 MHz mark! I am not sure what happened between that 567 MHz mark and 616 MHz mark, but my machine seemed to be really flying now! Maybe it was the idea of eclipsing 600 MHz, I am not sure but it just seemed SOOO much faster. Everything was incredibly fluid.

Next was the 3DMark 99MAX score. Let's see what we got:

• 3DMark result: 5765 3DMarks
• Synthetic CPU 3D Speed: 9196

Click to continue

WHOA! What an increase! We have eclipsed the 9000 mark on CPU 3D marks! We have picked up between 4-5 FPS in each mark. Trembling, I ran the Papadoc Benchmark.

• PapaDoc Benchmark 800x600: 21.104
• PapaDoc Benchmark 1024x768: 25.852

Alright! We have eclipsed the 21 FPS mark in the 2D cockpit! Oustanding! Our 1024x768 score went up nearly 2 FPS! Keep in mind this is the increase I am seeing just from changing the bus speed on my motherboard! I was very impressed by what I was seeing from this CPU. I was nearly at the same speed as what I could hope to see from a 600 MHz CPU. Let's pray and see if we can go up to a 117 MHz bus speed and reach 643 MHz CPU speed.

One more time, reboot enter the BIOS and increase my bus speed from 112 to 117 MHz. I left my voltage at 2.05 and booted into Windows 98 SE. So far so good, let's see what Sandra 98 says about my CPU.

Look at that score! Our CPU is killing that benchmark standard of 400 MHz Pentium II. It shows my CPU running at 643 MHz. Let's see what 3DMark 99MAX has to show us.

• 3DMark result: 5924 3DMarks
• Synthetic CPU 3D Speed: 9555

We are fast approaching more than 1000 CPU 3D marks, and our CPU is still scaling very well in this benchmark. We are now faster than most any 600 MHz CPU owners could ever hope to get. Only the very lucky will ever see 660 MHz from a 600 MHz CPU; most will be lucky to see 618 MHz.

Running the PapaDoc benchmark was next on my list. As my machine was running the benchmark, my computer locked. I was a little scared at this point. Had I reached the peak stability of this CPU? Would increasing the voltage help me get stable at 643 MHz? Well, I rebooted and increased the voltage from 2.05 to 2.10.

Ok, let's try this again. Booting into Windows 98 SE, I immediately went straight into Falcon 4.0 and loaded the PapaDoc benchmark. The benchmark ran flawlessly and posted a fabulous score. Let's look:

• PapaDoc Benchmark 800x600: 22.756
• PapaDoc Benchmark 1024x768: 25.705

Go to Part VI