There has always been an underdog in the CPU industry. Ever since the first personal computer came the market, Intel has been the main producer of CPUs. There have always been underdogs, and lots of them, including AMD, Cyrix, IBM, and Texas Instruments. When Intel created the Pentium Processor, Texas Instruments dropped out of the race, because it\’s lively hood depended on copying pervious processor, which were named by numbers. Due to federal laws, numbers are not able to be copyrighted, which means anything named by a number could be copied with no consequences. After Intel introduced the Pentium, all other companies had to think of their own ideas. Most were based on the last Intel Processor to be named by a number, the i486. Unfortunately, these CPUs failed horribly against the Pentium Processor. As of the past few months, the two main underdogs, AMD and Cyrix, have been catching up. We all know about the Athlon, and how it actually out performs the latest Pentium line of CPUs.
Cyrix, on the other hand, went out of business, and was recently bought by the successful chipset maker, VIA. VIA has revamped the Cyrix line of processors, have have given the industry a new underdog to cheer on. Here are the specs on their new processor, the Cyrix III:
Cyrix III Processor![](\"http://www.via.com.tw/images/cyrix/cyrix3/cyrix3.jpg\")
| Bus Speed | 66MHz-133MHz |
| 3D | MMX and 3D Now! |
| Floating Point | 80bit |
| L1 Cache | 64KB Unified |
| L2 Cache | 256KB On core |
| Voltage | 2.2V |
| Clock Multiplier | Not Locked |
| Available Speed | 433,466,500,533MHz |
| Compatibility | x86 – Celeron |
| Interface | Socket 370 |
What does all of that mean? Being it\’s Socket 370, it\’s compatible with most Slot 1 and Socket 370 motherboards. For compatibility with Slot 1 Motherboard, you\’ll need a Sloket, which is a daughter card with a Socket370 on it. You also might need a BIOS Flash update. To obtain one, contact your motherboard manufacturer. Since the Cyrix III has 256KB of L2 Cache, it\’s business, as well as 3D performance will be better than the MII, being the L2 Cache is intergraded into the CPU itself, meaning it will be very fast 1/4MB RAM. 3D Now! Support means that more 3D games will run faster, because of special codes built into the core of the processor. Don\’t expect Pentium III like 3D preformance, because the FPU of the Cyrix III still isn\’t up to par. Being 3D Now! has been around longer than Intel\’s SSE, more games have support for it. 133MHz Bus Support isn\’t the full story of the clock speed feature. The Cyrix Joshua will not be clock multiplier locked! This will be the first major CPU in a long time that one can use different multipliers with. That also means someone can use any bus speed, with this CPU, as long as the final MHz rating is close to the specified speed. 0.18u Micron process will be an advantage, because the CPU will be smaller, run faster on less power, run cooler, and cost less. x86 compatibility offers the user of the Cyrix Joshua to run all major programs run today, including Microsoft Windows 9x and NT, and 99.9% of software that run on that OS. Don\’t forget, if you really want to, you can run other x86 Operating Systems, such as Linux, and DOS.
The Cyrix III will be a major player in the Low Cost PC market. The price is at or below the Intel Celeron, with performance around that of a Celeron. Of course, this processor doesn\’t even come close the AMD Athlon. The Cyrix III will be a great processor for the low end market. It\’s a great processor for the average home user for web surfing, documents, spread sheets, e-mail, and games. If you\’re looking for a great overall PC, under $750, look for one with the Cyrix III Processor. But, if this chip is to make it anywhere, it will make it being the CPU running the famous \”Free PCs.\” Unfortunately for VIA, that\’s not good at all.
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