We test every processor in 4 ways: memory bandwidth (and how the performance flaw affects it); 16bit DOS using our own CBENCHP benchmark; Windows 95 using the standard real application benchmark Winstone 97; 3D and Floating point (=arithmetic calculations) using Quake.

System configuration: AMD K6-200 on Intel's TX chipset with 64 Mb EDO memory, Matrox Mystique 4 MB graphics card, Quantum Fireball 3.2 hard disk. All three socket 7 processors (Pentium MMX, AMD K6, Cyrix 6x86MX) have been tested on exactly the same computer.

 
I' Bandwidth and Performance flaw

The 'normal' rate is the rate which is achieved with the best normal way possible.
The 'innovative' rate is achieved by knowing the performance flaw and applying our workarounds.
The source of this chart is Membench. For more information click on the chart.
   
As you can see from the chart, AMD K6 has the flaw to its full degree, with 4 important remarks:

• The read and transfer flaw is not correctable (only a little in the L2 cache); that is the flaw is permanent, the penalty is asserted also on non-sequential accesses. (Though it's correctable on the K5!).
• AMD K6, Cyrix 6x86MX and Pentium II have write allocation, that is on a cache miss, they read a whole line before they write to it, resulting in lower main memory write performance and higher secondary cache write performance. This is a design decision selectable by an internal register; if disabled, write performance is very similar to Pentium MMX.
• The normal video memory write rate (which is very important in games) is considerably slower than Pentium's and 6x86MX's.
• The main memory transfer rate is the lowest of all processors.

II' DOS benchmark

In our 16 bit (DOS) CBENCHP benchmark AMD K6-200 scored: loop 0.63, program 0.53, transfer 74350 (due to its huge 64K internal cache), video 51020, resulting in it being 284 times faster than IBM PC/XT.

 
III' Windows 95 benchmark
 
On Business Winstone 97 it scored 51.9 outperforming only Pentium MMX.
 

IV' 3D/Floating Point benchmarks

On Quake AMD K6-200 achieves 13.4 frames per second which is less that the 15.7 of Pentium MMX, but better than the 11.8 of Cyrix.

 
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