My Personal Cyrix 6x86
Upgrade Experience

 

Note: Tyan has replaced the Tomcat I with the Tomcat IIIS.

Why did I buy a Cyrix 6x86 P166+?
Why did I buy a Tyan Tomcat I motherboard?
Who did I buy from?
How did the upgrade go?
Benchmarks that I prefer
A benchmark comparison of my Cyrix P166+ and 101 Pentium systems
Conclusion

Q. Why did I buy a Cyrix 6x86 P166+?

A. Listed below are the primary reasons that I decided to go with a Cyrix 6x86 P166+ processor:

Q. Why did I buy a Tyan Tomcat I Motherboard?

A. I read and heard many good things about the Tyan Tomcat I motherboard. It is one of the fastest and most expandable Pentium class boards around according to independent reviews and word of mouth. I can personally testify that these claims are true. This board is a champ. Yes, the Tomcat I was on the motherboard compatibility list. Read the Tyan Motherboard FAQ for enlightenment. Tyan currently doesn't make a board than can handle a Cyrix P200+, however. Does anyone know if one is coming?

Do yourself a favor a buy from a reputable motherboard manufacturer that has a presence on the Internet. There are many no-name boards out there that are cheap, but low quality and poor performers. I would be willing to bet that one day you will want to upgrade your bios. For example, you must upgrade your bios if you ever want to use a MMX (Multimedia/Matrix Math Extensions) processor when they become available. Good luck finding a freebie upgrade for your no-name board.

Q. Who did I buy from?

A. I ended up buying locally from Datatek Computer on 08/20/96. You might want to check out the PC Catalog Buyer's Directory. Updated weekly, the Buyers' Directory lets you comparison shop among 300+ leading mail-order vendors offering computer products. This page rocks! I guarantee that you will find prices lower here than anything you can find in Computer Shopper.

I have been told that PriceWatch is another great place to get up to date pricing information. Give it a try also.

Q. How did the upgrade go?

A. Before I started, I verified the jumpers were set correctly on my new Tomcat board. Don't blindly trust the vendor. A lot of vendors don't even test a motherboard before they sell it. They put it in a box and out the door it goes. Don't assume that your board came ready to go. I had to change the voltage setting to 3.3V on my board to accommodate my Cyrix chip.

After getting the jumper settings straightened out, I took out the old board and put in the new board. I plugged everything back in (connectors, hard drive, etc.). Okay, I admit I got a few of the connectors backwards the first time. I rebooted the machine, set the bios, and the next thing I heard was the Grammy award winning Microsoft theme sound. I wanted to put plug and play to a real test and see if Windows 95 would realize that I changed motherboards and reconfigure itself appropriately. My old board was a Micronics JX30G VLB. Amazingly, Windows 95 reconfigured itself automatically and I was up and running. Bill Gates would of had tears in his eyes. My new system is completely Plug and Play which probably contributed to its successful recovery. I did reinstall Windows 95 later of course. Windows 95 has never cleaned up registry entries very well. The whole upgrade took about one hour and I haven't had a single problem.

Q. Benchmarks that I prefer:

A. Could there possibly be more benchmarks? Don't you hate it when people use Quake as a benchmark? I think benchmarks are like surveys. You can find a benchmark to produce the results that you desire. Case in point, Cyrix stated that its FPU outperformed Intel's. What? Huh? Somebody in a testing lab somewhere needs to go a little easy on the sauce. I only give a crap about two benchmarks. Those are the Winstone 32 and Winstone 96 benchmarks from ZD Labs. ZD Labs describes these benchmarks as follows:

"WinstoneŽ 96 measures a PC’s overall Windows performance by running 13 of today’s leading Windows-based applications. WinstoneŽ 32 measures a PC’s overall Windows 95 or Windows NT performance by running eight of today’s leading Windows-based 32-bit business applications."

I like these benchmarks because they score real world applications that you would run everyday. By using these scores I can tell immediately if my system will run Microsoft Word for Windows 95 faster than the system review in the latest PC Magazine. A Cyrix 6x86 P200+ achieved the highest Winstone scores under Windows 95 recorded by PC Magazine - Sept. 10, 1996 to date. Now that is performance I can identify with!

I could care less about the Graphics WinMark, for example. Of course a Matrox Millennium will kill my ATI 3D Xpression in true color. A Seagate Barracuda SCSI-2 drive will probably eat my Seagate Medalist Fast ATA-2 for lunch on the DiskMark score. These benchmarks, however, do not necessarily equate to real world performance.

Q. A benchmark comparison of my Cyrix P166+ and 101 Pentium systems:

A. For all of those like myself who don't have the patience to wait 4-6 weeks to get the PC Labs benchmark CD-ROM in the mail and are upset because they can't download the Winstone benchmarks, I was tipped off that they are included on the PC Magazine Multimedia Edition. I went out and bought the Fall 1996 edition at Computer City for $12.79. I found the benchmarks on the CD in addition a lot of other good stuff.

Included on the CD was a review of 101 Pentium-class machines--ranging from 120 to 166 MHz that PC Labs tested using both the Winstone 32 and Winstone 96 benchmarks. The review included detailed information about each system and their recorded benchmark scores. I read the article that described how they performed the testing and I reproduced this same environment on my system at home and ran the benchmarks.

The following is a summary of my system features:

Since the Multimedia Edition is interactive, there was a feature that allowed me to import my Winstone 32 and Winstone 96 benchmark scores into the PC Magazines benchmarks results viewer so I could compare them against any system in the review. The results viewer also allowed me to specify a set of search criteria to narrow down the number of systems that I wished to make a comparison with.

I wanted to see how my system stacked up against all of the Pentium 166 and Cyrix P166+ systems.



My system benchmark scores are listed at the top of the graph next to the name Tyan Tomcat I P166+. All Winstone scores are sorted ascending. The results are very interesting.


My system blew all of the other 101 systems away on the Winstone 32 benchmark. It wasn't even close.


It was a different story, however, when you look at how it performed on the Winstone 96 benchmark. It was squarely in the middle of the pack. This graph can only show 20 systems at a time so you are not seeing all of the other system scores.

In summary, when running Windows 95 and 32-bit applications, my Tyan Tomcat I with a Cyrix P166+ is a big bad boy and it is as fast as they come. When running Windows 95 and 16-bit applications it performs as an average P166.

Q. Conclusion:

A. Cyrix was the right way to go for me. The Cyrix is a real performer under Windows 95 and 32-bit applications. It will especially be great in the winter because the chip runs so hot it will heat up my office and lower my gas bill. Seriously, I have never had a single problem with performance, lockups, or software incompatibilities. I would recommend it to anyone. Who will win the battle of the CPU? The user, of course. Now all I have to do is figure out what I am going to do with the extra $150 I saved.