Review: VIA Cyrix III / Samuel

2D-Benchmarks: Windows 98SE

The level of performance with standard applications is still the most important issue for a microprocessor. This does not only include programs such as Microsoft's Word or Excel but also MPEG encoders, 3D and sound-editing applications. Chip makers simply love computer games since this market is always in need of greater CPU performance. The Internet has also been identified as one of the potential drivers for faster CPUs, however, practical experience has shown that SSE or 3DNow! do not make much of a difference when it comes to surfing the Internet.

Apart from a few exceptions, classic 2D applications gain the most from a CPU that performs well with integer instructions. But the number of sound and graphics editing applications that - just as games - prefer a fast FPU and MMX or 3DNow! is constantly increasing. We therefore evaluated the performance with the benchmark suite SYSMark98 by Bapco, which features a mix of all the aforementioned applications.

Cyrix III does not offer satisfying performance with standard applications and Windows 98SE. The lack of an L2 cache has a considerable negative impact on the scores. For a direct comparison of the Intel and VIA cores, we also benchmarked a Celeron 500 with the L2 cache disabled. The Celeron clearly wins with 136 points versus 103 points achieved by Cyrix III. This is even more significant since the Celeron only has a 32-KByte L1 cache, split into 16 KBytes each for instructions and data. The Samuel core is not even able to match the Celeron core under "equal conditions".

Please bear in mind that "PC100" and "PC133" in these diagrams only refer to the memory clock. The Celeron 566 always ran at its specified FSB of 66 MHz while the FSB for the Cyrix III 500 was clocked at 100 MHz.