K6-2+ - Last of the Socket 7s New

1. What & Why?
2. The Core Voltage.
3. BIOS Support.
4. WCPUID.
5. Benchmarks.

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1. What & Why?

The K6-2+ is AMD's latest Socket 7 CPU and probably the last. AMD created this CPU for use in notebook computers and its features reflect this. It uses 2.0V core voltage and has a power management function called PowerNOW! The other important improvement over the classic K6-2 is 128KB of on-die L2 cache. This is similar to the architecture of the K6-III, and in fact, Windows detects the K6-2+ as a K6-III.

"Why" is pretty straight-forward ..... because the classic K6-2 and K6-III are no longer available or difficult to find on the market. In addition, the 128KB of L2 cache holds promise of better performance. Now, AMD and some mobo manufacturers have declared that the K6-2+ will not work on existing Socket 7 and Super 7 mobos. But others like FIC have released beta BIOS that have improved support for this CPU.

So, the only way for us "Mobo Hackers" to be sure is to try it!

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2. The Core Voltage

As mentioned above, the K6-2+ uses a core voltage of 2.0V. This is great news for the AP5T-3.1 because the 11-12 position of JP11 gives exactly 2.0V. This info is on the AP5T - How? page.

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3. BIOS Support

Of course, the AP5T BIOS cannot be expected to support the K6-2+ because its so old. The question would be whether this lack of support will cause any problems. True enough, upon boot up the AP5T BIOS v1.80 detects the CPU as a 486DX-S 66MHz! However, the boot process completes successfully into DOS and Windows. Note that the System BIOS Cacheable setting must be disabled first. This is the same as what we experienced with the K6-III.

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4. WCPUID

Well, the system booted and entered Windows ME successfully and it seems stable. Here are some WCPUID v2.80 screenshots :-

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4. Benchmarks

How does the K6-2+ stand up against the K6-2 and K6-III?

To answer this question, I pitted the K6-2+ 450MHz against a K6-III 450 and then downclocked the K6-2+ to 400MHz and benchmarked it against a K6-2 380 overclocked to 400MHz. Here are the results :-

CPU	K6-2+ 450	K6-III 450	K6-2+ 400	K6-2 400
WCPUID v2.80
CPUMark 99	28.5	32.5	25.0	17.3
Business Winstone 99	17.3	17.7	15.4	13.8

The numbers show that the K6-2+ is 44.5% (CPUMark 99) and 11.6% (Winstone 99) faster than the K6-2, while the K6-III is only 14.0% (CPUMark 99) and 2.3% (Winstone 99) faster than the K6-2+. Seems that 128KB of L2 cache makes a substantial difference in business applications.

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Disclaimer

Adrian
Last revised: October 31, 2000.