Awesome Phil! My first computer was this Pentium 233MHz MMX. It's a custom build I bought it off a friend. 96MB EDO RAM, SB LIVE, and a voodoo 3 2000! It took a while to load games, but then it could actually play newer titles like UT99 and Half Life in Glide mode pretty good (all things considered) once the level loaded. Played many hours of HL multiplayer using the surround sound of the SB Live to my advantage. I just resurrected it a couple of months ago to play DOS games. Now it has a Soundblaster 32 and an ATI Rage XL 8MB. Works great to play old games!
funny thing is my ryzen 2700 runs quake 1 @ 1280x1024 (a bit over a quarter of my native screen resolution) in software mode at only 30fps. (as opposed to 2400 fps using open gl). so it's easy to make fun of these frame rates but software rendering kills pcs in these old-ass games even today. although there must be something very wrong because it doesn't feel right. it should be well into the 500s even in this resolution. it must be a windows 10 thing. [edit] defintively a windows 10 thing. a 486 dx4 100 gets 7fps in the demo1 timedemo, and this is like 100~500 times faster than that even using single-threaded unoptimized period benchmarks. my 500~ish guesstimate was actually a bit conservative. unreal tournament won't even run in software mode.
@@GraveUypo I think the software renderer is capped there in order to prevent overwhelming the cpu core(which also does the math for the ai, soundeffects and so on). Using the software renderer you can get 30 fps in crysis 1 at 1280x1024 with your ryzen.
This is cool. I've got mine for about 10 USD just a few months ago and wished for it to be in the last "poll build". Never mind, i's still all good! I just adore all your videos :)
Yea only one CPU gets picked, but I do look after all of you, so I cover the CPUs that didn't get picked as well :D Plus some more that I have lying around :P
233mmx was the last hand me down pc my stepdad gave me and the first I bought with my own money when I was 18 and finishing high school in 2002. It had a 4mb Alliance 3d connected to a 12mb voodoo 2 cards allowing me to play games like Metal Gear Solid, Sin, unreal etc after upgrading from a cyrix 120+. I upgraded to a Pentium 3 Celeron 667mhz and eventually to an Athlon XP 2600 after I started working full time and wanting to play newer games with a few short years.
I bought a used MMX 233 at a local computer dealer for 10 bucks about a decade ago. I didn't know the internet price for them had remained high until now. It was a great chip (and easy to overclock too) but outrageously expensive brand new compared to the Cyrix and K6.
To be fair the P200/P233 can't even max out a VooDoo 1, which is HALF the speed of a V2. Put a VooDoo 1 in a Pentium II 233 and compare framerates, the PII can max out the VooDoo 1. I tried VooDoo 2 (and SLI) with a K6-III 450 and it was a waste of time running SLI, and the K6-III is way faster than the Pentium 1 233Mhz. I run my Pentium 1 200Mhz machine with a single VooDoo 1 and it plays everything that I played back in 1997 on that machine. I have the VooDoo 2 SLI sitting in a Duron 700 machine which took FOREVER to get working properly due to issues with the motherboard I used. But it flies, and I can max out the V2 SLI with that rig at stock CPU clocks. XD
I still have mmx 166 in the storage. It has locked multiplier of 2,5. It overclocks easily on Super Socket 7 to 250Mhz. I guess the one you have is mmx 200. They have locked multipliers.
i really regret being a brat and not knowing about overcloking at the time. my 486 and my pentium 233 were the cpus i would have benefited the most from overclocking, but i only learned it was a thing with my pentium 2 400. actually, it was when i already had my atlhon 700 and my brother was sad that HIS pentium 2 400 was so much slower. he overclocked and bridged like half of the gap for free.
yes, in those times, i didn't know about overclocking, i had 486, pentium 133, and amd k6-2+, then thunderbird 1,33 Ghz. All on stock speeds. So much performance was lost during 1995-2005. But in 2005, I've got sempron64 2500+ and finally got DFI Lanparty highend motherboard, meant for overclocking, and learn to overlock. I've achieved 1,6 Ghz to 2,45 Ghz, which is +850 Mhz, differance was incredible. I was sad, I suffered all those years many times on slow FPS in games, particulary, before 3d accelerators came, in Duke 3d 640x480, quake 1, and some 1997 non accelerated games. Was shocked, overclocking was so easy, you can basicaly read one tutorial, and in 1 hour can learn to overclock and understand all around it, to not screw things up.
awwww i was really looking forward to overclocking figures. you have my exact old mobo and my exact old cpu and i wish you'd show me what could have been if i knew about overclocking back then.
This brings back memories, I worked in a computer shop for 1 year, starting late 1997. I remember building many P200 and P233 MMX machines, along with some AMD and Cyrix. We even sold the IDT WinChip for a while, have you ever encountered one of those?
I just sold an IDT-Winchip 2A 233 on eBay for a few hundred quid. Was looking through a box of CPU spares and came across a couple of them, among a butt load of other weird and rare CPU's, including a bunch of 486-DX4 overdrives. Listed many of them on eBay. Rather people actually use them than they spend another decade in that shoebox! XD I kept one Winchip though. Planning to test it out in a rig when I find the time.
Great video Phil! I got a Pentium MMX 233 machine for my birthday back in 1998 and I remember it being this very powerful juggernaut compared to my friend's Pentium 166. When I got back into retro PCs, I followed your Super Socket 7, 4 in 1 video and built myself a decent SS7 machine so I could play games I used to own back in the MMX days.
Kkkkk. I had a K6-3 with an ATi Video Card (I don't remember the model, probably Rage) and Windows 98. Then I bought a new motherboard with a Pentium III 667 MHz. It's still alive today for retro gaming! Kkkkk
just got this beast working.... HP Pavilion 8240. Sold New between 1995 and 1998 with Windows 95, I've installed Windows 98 SE. Has a Pentium 233MHz MMX Processor, 32MB Ram, 8.4GB Hard Drive, ATI 264VT2 Video Chipset and Sound Blaster AudioPCI Sound.
Had one of these with 64mb edo ram and Ati Rage Pro 8mb in 1998-mid 99. Played Half-Life on it late 98 after it came out without a problem at all. Such fun times!
Wow takes me back, had one of these back in the day, ran it O/Ced @ 266Mhz from day one. Silly money at the time though, around 300 UKP, vs just over 200 ukp for the 200Mhz MMX. Must have been better off back then :)
This was my first machine. Running Half-Life at 320x200 to get smooth gameplay on 14" CRT monitor. 1GB HDD, so only one game at a time. OMG, those were the days...
I had one of these (p/233mmx) in 97-98 with a DFI socket 7 board, 64mb ram, Ati Rage Pro 8mb, 2 x 8gb hds.. then I upgraded to 440BX P3/500 with voodoo2 setup and cdr/dvdrom. Great times
I have one of these in my old school machine. I ran a recycling and refurbishing shop years ago, and got a batch of compaq or hp machines in (I can't recall). When I was tearing them down I noticed these CPU's, which I had never seen up to that point. I saved a couple, and eventually built one into a machine that I still have. I'm guessing these are fairly hard to find now.
First PC I built had a MMX 233, with a switch that bumped the FSB to 83Mhz, which overclocked it to 250Mhz. It was blazing fast, and almost stable at that speed.
I over clocked this chip with a refrigerator plate & Fan to 366Mhz and changed the ram from 66 to 133Mhz DDr2 Hecules 2 D 3D D3D and 2 3Dftx Voodoo's attached to it as one card. Ordered from UISA special never available in CANADA. I HAD THE ONLY ONE. I ran Comando's RED ALERT COMMAND & CONQUER and so many other.. Had 3D peakers you could hear the drops in Tomb Raider.. Incredible experience.
I had the Intel 233MHz Pentium MMX, this was back when I was in middle school lol, gaming and homework. But I do remember them to have a 266MHz version too. This was at the cusp of the Intel Pentium II launch. I know because the salesman asked my Dad and I whether he wanted to opt for that with 64mb of ram. Wish I still had that lying around. Was built into a PC vendor from the US called Nexar. Pretty sure they’re defunct now but interesting stuff.
For my new Voodoo Graphics project, I use a Celeron 266 without L2 Cache, the slowest Slot 1 CPU from Intel. It has the same power like the MMX 233 and is more than enough for a Voodoo 1 and Dos Glide Games, or later Dos Games without Glide.
this was the chip in my old packard bell desktop, it had this processor 4 gb hdd i honestly cant remember how much ram it had or its graphical capabilities but i played tomb raider nfs 2 se, duke nukem 3d doom 1 2 and final doom, command and conquer tiberian sun and red alert 2 with their expansions, starcraft broadwar, G-nome, and a few others so it was a decent system at the time
muito legal Phil, meu 1 foi um Intel 486 66mhz, o 2 foi um Pentium 266 mmx slot 1, tenho aki em casa até hj funcionando com a voodoo 3 3000 pci, especial pra jogos dx6 e DOS.
People call it multimedia extensions, but I am dubious of that being the actual meaning. I tend to lean towards 'multiple math extension'. Yeah, doesn't sound very technical, but stuff like that didn't get much thought back then. It's benefits for DSP was not the reason it was added, so there is no reason for them to add 'multimedia' to the name. It just turned out to help speed up multimedia significantly, but that was a coincidence.
Two things; Every time I tore down a Pentium 1 machine I always saved the CPU, I have like 6 or so Pentium 233 MMX chips laying around. I was redoing the overclock on my main machine and noticed the i7 chips still have MMX in the instruction sets. MMX was such a performance boost for games back in the day, they didn't stop advertising MMX on CPUs till the P4 came out because everyone wanted a chip with it that people still wanted to make sure it was there.
Got two of this CPU for free at school, one has an Overdrive style cooler (the fan needs external power), with an MSI MS-5158 (i430tx chipset) and other cards too
They're really not... lol. I've scrapped boat loads of these and older chips over the years. I guess to folks like phill, hightreason and myself though they're occasionally worth $5 - $20 tops, if the nostalgia bug bites at the right time ;)
cool to know people also have retro rooms. here's mine: s18.postimg.cc/7iv88cz7r/IMG_20160917_214747424_HDR.jpg it's a lan room. the computers you see on this pic are not THAT retro but i do have some really old ones. pretty sure i have a 286 and a 386 lying around in my office still. the oldest one in this room is probably... a pentium 2 400mhz. i currently only have space for 6 pcs at a time with that stupid table. gotta buy some more fitting small desks to put against the wall, not in the middle of the room.
@@GraveUypo impressive retro room. I don't have the space for that. I am trying to make a retro desk. It will, hopefully, have 8 computers under the desk all sharing single keyboard, mouse and monitor with a KVM to switch the active PC. I have a KVM that I can connect wireless USB keyboard/mouse and the KVM can translate that into PS/2 signals for older PCs, and into USB for newer ones. I am hoping to go from 386/25mhz era up until 2021 with an AMD 5950X/RYX 3080 all on one 1.6 Meter wide desk. I am not using standard cases. I am making my own enclosure to house it all, and small power supplies where possible (taken from ATX Shuttle PCs).
I have 2 MMX CPUs, both 200MHz, but one can do 3.5 multiplier, other stays at 3.0. In the end, I have a the open multiplier CPU running at 3.5x75=266MHz. That's a beast! If possible, you do want to run higher than 66MHz FSB, because that along other things, directly overclocks your memory as well. If you are running on SDRAM, it is probably anyways rated at 100MHz or 133MHz. ;)
MMX is actually the name of a set of internal registers, I believe. I can't recall exactly for what, but it was MM0 - MM7 I believe. I didn't know these CPUs were worth so much - I had a chance to pick up a few dozen a while back (all in Deskpro machines), it probably would've been worth the 11 cents a piece. I say we get a 200MHz MMX to see if it was actually the MMX instructions or if it was the extra 33MHz that bumped performance up.
Even with non-MMX-optimized software the MMX-CPUs were still faster at the same clock speed, because along the MMX-instructions other parts of the CPU-architecture were optimized.
The MMX CPU had the extra 16% clock speed AND slightly increased cache, over it's 200Mhz vanilla Pentium counterpart. Pretty sure the MMX extensions did nothing in 95% of games at that time. I seem to remember there being a version of POD that was specifically re-written to take advantage of MMX, and possibly the first MDK game. But that's it.
Interesting, I just got a lot of ~10 machines for $15 and at least two of them had Pentium MMX 233Mhz, back in the day I used to build those machines for other people and wasn't able to afford that processor. BTW the best-looking x86 processor ever produced, very heavy metal look and feel.
MMX processors up to 266-300 mhz socket 7 PPGA chips existed as far as I know, they were in laptops or embedded systems and had a die shrink compared to the standard desktop MMX cpus letting them run at a lower voltage, TDP and cooler overall. It's possible to get them working on some socket 7/super 7 boards as far as I know but takes some doing and may have problems with L2 cache. Would be interesting to see how high one could clock those.
Those prices are steep :o I like overclocking them with 75 and 83mhz fsb settings on boards that can handle it but they also work with 100mhz fsb with the multiplier at 2.0 or 2.5 without a fuss.
It is nice that you can use a Socket A or Socket 370 cooler on Socket 7 and vice versa. I used a PIII cooler back in the days with a 200mhz mmx cpu and it ran very cool.
wow, was it really introduced in june? i bought it early july that year. i had no idea it was THAT new. that pc was one of the best i've ever had. didn't last very long considering the era it was bought in, but when i bought it it was blistering fast. it was also the pc i bought my voodoo2 for, which was what made it so insane. funny thing it was really cheap in term of my currency. because at the time, real was pretty much on par with the dollar, if not a bit more valuable. so i only spent R$ 1300,00 in the whole pc, and it was freaking high end all around. in contrast, nowadays you can't even buy the ram for a new high end system with that sort of money.
Can't tell if is the slightly increased Mhz bump of 16%, or the increased cache, that gives the 233MMX the lead over the vanilla 200, but it seems that the MMX extensions did nothing in gaming. I remember my Pentium 200Mhz non-mmx beating my friends P166MMX in pretty much every game, from Quake to Carmageddon. He even had a slightly better clocked and more expensive VooDoo card, he had the Orchid Righteous and I had the Maxi Gamer.
Pentium MMX 233 was in my first PC besides a Voodo 1 and 48 MB of Ram. I played Half Life and Diablo 2 (beat Hell) with it. It ran quite poor (below 15 fps) but this was enough for my 13 years old me.
It seems that the performance improvements being seen is predominately coming from the 33 Mhz speed increase. I'm curious though, is turning off the caches an indicator of the performance of the chip architecture? The numbers are interesting at the very least.
No, because the chip architecture is designed with using caches in mind. It's an integral part of the architecture. Nobody would set out to design a turbo engine in a way that the engine also works great without the turbo.
Why are the more "more" modern CPU so sensitive to cache disablement? I remember when people were counterfeiting those stickers or changing the laser engravings, saying a slower or older version of a chip was a faster or newer one. Even legit places could be caught up in that if the fakes were done well.
What was great with this Pentium was installing it on a super socket 7 mobo, and make it run at 250 MHz with a 100 MHz bus. Better than a PII-233 for half the price !
A friend gave me his 233Mhz MMX Pentium system with a Biostar MB8500 TTD motherboard with the Intel 430TX chipset.I tricked it out with some hardware upgrades.Well certainly I added a Diamond Monster 3D card to it as it was a good match.
To be fair, my 166 MMX ran at 266 for years with overclocking. You know they were downbinning back then! Until one day the fan fell off. Not good back then! Least cpu's should be able to cope with that these days.
Btw, In the old days. I remember thats my slot 1 celeron beated the pentium 2 slot 1 in games. I guess because of the l2 cache being on full speed on the celeron Would be an interesting project as well mate. I had a celly 300 and a p2 333. I liked the performance of the celeron better back then. ( both had a voodoo3 )
PhilsComputerLab A benchmark with cpus from 1996-1999 would be very interesting in my opinion. Pentium vs MMX vs K6 vs K6-2 vs K6-3 vs CeleronA vs Pentium 2 vs Pentium 3 Katmai. The benchmarks you made with cpus from that time were great but as far as I know you used only Pentium 1, K6-2, K6-3. It would be very interesting to see all Intel and Amd cpus from that time against itch other :).
For socket 7 I would always look to the AMD K6 series. I had a K62 500mhz and that was able to play pretty much all titles at up to 1024 x 768 with a decent graphics card.
I don't know for sure. I am pretty sure AMD made some chips for socket 7. The one I had was a Super 7 one. I am not sure but I think there were converter boards that let you use Super 7 CPU's on Socket 7.
For those faster AMD cpus he would be using a Super7 motherboard as it supports fsb speeds faster than the 66mhz bus on regular socket7 boards. I remember reading about these in PC magazines back in the day.
How would the MMX compare to its older brother when both run at the same clockspeed? In other words, I wonder how the clock to clock performance of both CPU's is.
I'll have to look into it. I remember upgrading my Pentium 120MHz to a 200MHz CPU (that I got from a broken Gateway system) back in the day. The 90's were good times for computer enthousiasts!
I had a clone around that time and I can't seem to recall any information about including the brand. I want to say it was a Cyrix, but I feel like it was something else.
IDT Winchip- that's it! I think I had the 200mhz version, gaming sucked, but it was an improvement over the P100 (it may have been a P90) my AST Advantage PC came with. I think I got that in 1996, then got the Winchip in 1998. Man I miss those days where such a minor upgrade would lead to significant improvements in games and boot time.
I've still got my P233MMX that I bought with the first paycheck from my first fulltime job. Still works like a charm.
When I had 133MHz Pentium, 233MHz MMX was really high end.
Awesome Phil! My first computer was this Pentium 233MHz MMX. It's a custom build I bought it off a friend. 96MB EDO RAM, SB LIVE, and a voodoo 3 2000! It took a while to load games, but then it could actually play newer titles like UT99 and Half Life in Glide mode pretty good (all things considered) once the level loaded. Played many hours of HL multiplayer using the surround sound of the SB Live to my advantage. I just resurrected it a couple of months ago to play DOS games. Now it has a Soundblaster 32 and an ATI Rage XL 8MB. Works great to play old games!
Nice, thanks for sharing!
This was my first CPU. First ever build when I was 16. I was the envy of all my friends who had 486 systems.
With a Voodoo 2 or Banshee the Pentium MMX is perfectly capable of running at decent framerates games like Quake 2, Unreal, Half Life.
Indeed!
Ours had a 3d blaster branded voodoo banshie could run all my games on max (16mb not sure if it was ago or pic model)
I don't know why you would play Tomb Raider on a Pentium 200 or 233 MMX without a 3d accelerator card. Put a 3dfx card in there and watch it fly.
playstation 33 mhz risc cpu so why not
Perhaps.. just PERHAPS he is trying to see the difference MMX extensions make without 3D accelerator influence. ps, perhaps. :s
funny thing is my ryzen 2700 runs quake 1 @ 1280x1024 (a bit over a quarter of my native screen resolution) in software mode at only 30fps. (as opposed to 2400 fps using open gl). so it's easy to make fun of these frame rates but software rendering kills pcs in these old-ass games even today. although there must be something very wrong because it doesn't feel right. it should be well into the 500s even in this resolution. it must be a windows 10 thing.
[edit] defintively a windows 10 thing. a 486 dx4 100 gets 7fps in the demo1 timedemo, and this is like 100~500 times faster than that even using single-threaded unoptimized period benchmarks. my 500~ish guesstimate was actually a bit conservative. unreal tournament won't even run in software mode.
@@GraveUypo I think the software renderer is capped there in order to prevent overwhelming the cpu core(which also does the math for the ai, soundeffects and so on). Using the software renderer you can get 30 fps in crysis 1 at 1280x1024 with your ryzen.
@@abcdefg9613 nope it's some sort of windows 10 glitch, it runs faster under win xp on an old core2quad i have laying around.
This is cool. I've got mine for about 10 USD just a few months ago and wished for it to be in the last "poll build". Never mind, i's still all good! I just adore all your videos :)
Yea only one CPU gets picked, but I do look after all of you, so I cover the CPUs that didn't get picked as well :D Plus some more that I have lying around :P
233mmx was the last hand me down pc my stepdad gave me and the first I bought with my own money when I was 18 and finishing high school in 2002. It had a 4mb Alliance 3d connected to a 12mb voodoo 2 cards allowing me to play games like Metal Gear Solid, Sin, unreal etc after upgrading from a cyrix 120+. I upgraded to a Pentium 3 Celeron 667mhz and eventually to an Athlon XP 2600 after I started working full time and wanting to play newer games with a few short years.
I bought a used MMX 233 at a local computer dealer for 10 bucks about a decade ago. I didn't know the internet price for them had remained high until now. It was a great chip (and easy to overclock too) but outrageously expensive brand new compared to the Cyrix and K6.
2022 and I confirm the same
got 200mmx with voodoo2 12mb - lovely setup.
To be fair the P200/P233 can't even max out a VooDoo 1, which is HALF the speed of a V2. Put a VooDoo 1 in a Pentium II 233 and compare framerates, the PII can max out the VooDoo 1. I tried VooDoo 2 (and SLI) with a K6-III 450 and it was a waste of time running SLI, and the K6-III is way faster than the Pentium 1 233Mhz.
I run my Pentium 1 200Mhz machine with a single VooDoo 1 and it plays everything that I played back in 1997 on that machine.
I have the VooDoo 2 SLI sitting in a Duron 700 machine which took FOREVER to get working properly due to issues with the motherboard I used. But it flies, and I can max out the V2 SLI with that rig at stock CPU clocks.
XD
233MMX, Riva STB Velocity 128 4MB 3D Accelerator, 32MB SDRAM, 4GB HDD... My first rig.... Ohhhhhhhh how I miss the days. No words could ever express.
I had the Pentium MMX 166. Great processor, easily overclocks to 3x100= 300Mhz (+80%) on Super socket 7
I still have mmx 166 in the storage. It has locked multiplier of 2,5. It overclocks easily on Super Socket 7 to 250Mhz. I guess the one you have is mmx 200. They have locked multipliers.
i really regret being a brat and not knowing about overcloking at the time. my 486 and my pentium 233 were the cpus i would have benefited the most from overclocking, but i only learned it was a thing with my pentium 2 400. actually, it was when i already had my atlhon 700 and my brother was sad that HIS pentium 2 400 was so much slower. he overclocked and bridged like half of the gap for free.
yes, in those times, i didn't know about overclocking, i had 486, pentium 133, and amd k6-2+, then thunderbird 1,33 Ghz. All on stock speeds. So much performance was lost during 1995-2005. But in 2005, I've got sempron64 2500+ and finally got DFI Lanparty highend motherboard, meant for overclocking, and learn to overlock. I've achieved 1,6 Ghz to 2,45 Ghz, which is +850 Mhz, differance was incredible. I was sad, I suffered all those years many times on slow FPS in games, particulary, before 3d accelerators came, in Duke 3d 640x480, quake 1, and some 1997 non accelerated games. Was shocked, overclocking was so easy, you can basicaly read one tutorial, and in 1 hour can learn to overclock and understand all around it, to not screw things up.
Thank you for bringing me back a great memory..
the 233 MHz Pentium was the fastest P55C Socket7.
Tillamook, the pentium built on 0.25 microns, would go up to 300 MHz and can also run on Socket7.
Phil delivers once again! Thanks, pal.
So happy that i bought this CPU, and at a steal. Whole PC was like 25$ :D
awwww i was really looking forward to overclocking figures. you have my exact old mobo and my exact old cpu and i wish you'd show me what could have been if i knew about overclocking back then.
I still have this Chip in a Notebook from 1997 - the "Toshiba TECRA 750CDT". This machine is easily WinXP capable. I still love it.
This brings back memories, I worked in a computer shop for 1 year, starting late 1997. I remember building many P200 and P233 MMX machines, along with some AMD and Cyrix. We even sold the IDT WinChip for a while, have you ever encountered one of those?
I just sold an IDT-Winchip 2A 233 on eBay for a few hundred quid. Was looking through a box of CPU spares and came across a couple of them, among a butt load of other weird and rare CPU's, including a bunch of 486-DX4 overdrives. Listed many of them on eBay. Rather people actually use them than they spend another decade in that shoebox! XD
I kept one Winchip though. Planning to test it out in a rig when I find the time.
Great video Phil! I got a Pentium MMX 233 machine for my birthday back in 1998 and I remember it being this very powerful juggernaut compared to my friend's Pentium 166.
When I got back into retro PCs, I followed your Super Socket 7, 4 in 1 video and built myself a decent SS7 machine so I could play games I used to own back in the MMX days.
Nice cpus back in 1999 I had a dual 233mmx :) now I only have 200mmx chips
Like that one in the MS-DOS time machine? Kkkkk
Kkkkk. I had a K6-3 with an ATi Video Card (I don't remember the model, probably Rage) and Windows 98. Then I bought a new motherboard with a Pentium III 667 MHz. It's still alive today for retro gaming! Kkkkk
PGA 370.
***** Yeah, I agree with this kkkkk
that beauty
This was the go-to processor for Intel fanboys who couldn’t afford to upgrade to a Pentium II and weren’t willing to consider a K6-2.
Back in those days I bought Pentium MMX 200MHz because I seem to remember there was a rather big price difference going up to the 233MHz variant.
166 MHz with or without MMX was the classic; it was on sale seemingly forever and just got cheaper and cheaper.
I can imagine that. Intel always charged lots of money for the top model.
I remember using pentium mmx 200mhz at 233mhz oc . then swapped to k6-2 400mhz, that was huge performance increase .
why no amd k5 ot k6 in the benchmark cytrix youre having laugh
just got this beast working.... HP Pavilion 8240. Sold New between 1995 and 1998 with Windows 95, I've installed Windows 98 SE. Has a Pentium 233MHz MMX Processor, 32MB Ram, 8.4GB Hard Drive, ATI 264VT2 Video Chipset and Sound Blaster AudioPCI Sound.
Had one of these with 64mb edo ram and Ati Rage Pro 8mb in 1998-mid 99. Played Half-Life on it late 98 after it came out without a problem at all. Such fun times!
I had that with a Voodoo2 and 32MB of Ram. I miss that computer. It was my first baby.
Wow takes me back, had one of these back in the day, ran it O/Ced @ 266Mhz from day one. Silly money at the time though, around 300 UKP, vs just over 200 ukp for the 200Mhz MMX. Must have been better off back then :)
This was my first machine. Running Half-Life at 320x200 to get smooth gameplay on 14" CRT monitor. 1GB HDD, so only one game at a time. OMG, those were the days...
I have a pentium mmx 233 with 32mb and a s3 2mb 2d card and 1704mb and 3222mb harddrives in my socket 7 pc and i got it free
I had one of these (p/233mmx) in 97-98 with a DFI socket 7 board, 64mb ram, Ati Rage Pro 8mb, 2 x 8gb hds.. then I upgraded to 440BX P3/500 with voodoo2 setup and cdr/dvdrom. Great times
I have one of these in my old school machine. I ran a recycling and refurbishing shop years ago, and got a batch of compaq or hp machines in (I can't recall). When I was tearing them down I noticed these CPU's, which I had never seen up to that point. I saved a couple, and eventually built one into a machine that I still have. I'm guessing these are fairly hard to find now.
Plz could you tell me which resolution did you play the games at ?
First PC I built had a MMX 233, with a switch that bumped the FSB to 83Mhz, which overclocked it to 250Mhz. It was blazing fast, and almost stable at that speed.
you mentioned a video card roundup next, I hope to see the ARK-2000!
Beside my K6-III/450 one of my favourate CPUs. Had an Cyrix 6x86MX-PR200 and bought a used 233MMX. Was a good choice. Later on the K6-III kicked in.
I over clocked this chip with a refrigerator plate & Fan
to 366Mhz and changed the ram from 66 to 133Mhz DDr2
Hecules 2 D 3D D3D and 2 3Dftx Voodoo's attached to it as one card.
Ordered from UISA special never available in CANADA.
I HAD THE ONLY ONE.
I ran Comando's RED ALERT COMMAND & CONQUER and so many other..
Had 3D peakers you could hear the drops in Tomb Raider.. Incredible experience.
I had the Intel 233MHz Pentium MMX, this was back when I was in middle school lol, gaming and homework. But I do remember them to have a 266MHz version too. This was at the cusp of the Intel Pentium II launch.
I know because the salesman asked my Dad and I whether he wanted to opt for that with 64mb of ram.
Wish I still had that lying around. Was built into a PC vendor from the US called Nexar. Pretty sure they’re defunct now but interesting stuff.
For my new Voodoo Graphics project, I use a Celeron 266 without L2 Cache, the slowest Slot 1 CPU from Intel. It has the same power like the MMX 233 and is more than enough for a Voodoo 1 and Dos Glide Games, or later Dos Games without Glide.
I just came across an old NT workstation with 233mmx, 128mb memory and ethernet card, happy days.
this was the chip in my old packard bell desktop, it had this processor 4 gb hdd i honestly cant remember how much ram it had or its graphical capabilities but i played tomb raider nfs 2 se, duke nukem 3d doom 1 2 and final doom, command and conquer tiberian sun and red alert 2 with their expansions, starcraft broadwar, G-nome, and a few others so it was a decent system at the time
I had a Pentuim MMX 200, overclocked since the day I bought it to 233
muito legal Phil, meu 1 foi um Intel 486 66mhz, o 2 foi um Pentium 266 mmx slot 1, tenho aki em casa até hj funcionando com a voodoo 3 3000 pci, especial pra jogos dx6 e DOS.
People call it multimedia extensions, but I am dubious of that being the actual meaning. I tend to lean towards 'multiple math extension'. Yeah, doesn't sound very technical, but stuff like that didn't get much thought back then.
It's benefits for DSP was not the reason it was added, so there is no reason for them to add 'multimedia' to the name. It just turned out to help speed up multimedia significantly, but that was a coincidence.
Two things;
Every time I tore down a Pentium 1 machine I always saved the CPU, I have like 6 or so Pentium 233 MMX chips laying around.
I was redoing the overclock on my main machine and noticed the i7 chips still have MMX in the instruction sets.
MMX was such a performance boost for games back in the day, they didn't stop advertising MMX on CPUs till the P4 came out because everyone wanted a chip with it that people still wanted to make sure it was there.
The instructions set are incremental, P-III has the same P-MMX + SSE, then P-IV has SSE2 + P-III
Got two of this CPU for free at school, one has an Overdrive style cooler (the fan needs external power), with an MSI MS-5158 (i430tx chipset) and other cards too
I have two of these randomly lying around my retro room loose. I need to take better care of them. I didn't think they were worth anything.
They're really not... lol. I've scrapped boat loads of these and older chips over the years. I guess to folks like phill, hightreason and myself though they're occasionally worth $5 - $20 tops, if the nostalgia bug bites at the right time ;)
cool to know people also have retro rooms.
here's mine:
s18.postimg.cc/7iv88cz7r/IMG_20160917_214747424_HDR.jpg
it's a lan room. the computers you see on this pic are not THAT retro but i do have some really old ones. pretty sure i have a 286 and a 386 lying around in my office still. the oldest one in this room is probably... a pentium 2 400mhz. i currently only have space for 6 pcs at a time with that stupid table. gotta buy some more fitting small desks to put against the wall, not in the middle of the room.
@@GraveUypo impressive retro room. I don't have the space for that. I am trying to make a retro desk. It will, hopefully, have 8 computers under the desk all sharing single keyboard, mouse and monitor with a KVM to switch the active PC. I have a KVM that I can connect wireless USB keyboard/mouse and the KVM can translate that into PS/2 signals for older PCs, and into USB for newer ones. I am hoping to go from 386/25mhz era up until 2021 with an AMD 5950X/RYX 3080 all on one 1.6 Meter wide desk. I am not using standard cases. I am making my own enclosure to house it all, and small power supplies where possible (taken from ATX Shuttle PCs).
was a good little processor back in the day, I had the 200mhz mmx version that we overclocked to a 250mhz(iirc)
I have 2 MMX CPUs, both 200MHz, but one can do 3.5 multiplier, other stays at 3.0.
In the end, I have a the open multiplier CPU running at 3.5x75=266MHz. That's a beast!
If possible, you do want to run higher than 66MHz FSB, because that along other things, directly overclocks your memory as well. If you are running on SDRAM, it is probably anyways rated at 100MHz or 133MHz. ;)
MMX is actually the name of a set of internal registers, I believe. I can't recall exactly for what, but it was MM0 - MM7 I believe.
I didn't know these CPUs were worth so much - I had a chance to pick up a few dozen a while back (all in Deskpro machines), it probably would've been worth the 11 cents a piece.
I say we get a 200MHz MMX to see if it was actually the MMX instructions or if it was the extra 33MHz that bumped performance up.
Even with non-MMX-optimized software the MMX-CPUs were still faster at the same clock speed, because along the MMX-instructions other parts of the CPU-architecture were optimized.
The MMX CPU had the extra 16% clock speed AND slightly increased cache, over it's 200Mhz vanilla Pentium counterpart. Pretty sure the MMX extensions did nothing in 95% of games at that time. I seem to remember there being a version of POD that was specifically re-written to take advantage of MMX, and possibly the first MDK game. But that's it.
Interesting, I just got a lot of ~10 machines for $15 and at least two of them had Pentium MMX 233Mhz, back in the day I used to build those machines for other people and wasn't able to afford that processor. BTW the best-looking x86 processor ever produced, very heavy metal look and feel.
MMX processors up to 266-300 mhz socket 7 PPGA chips existed as far as I know, they were in laptops or embedded systems and had a die shrink compared to the standard desktop MMX cpus letting them run at a lower voltage, TDP and cooler overall.
It's possible to get them working on some socket 7/super 7 boards as far as I know but takes some doing and may have problems with L2 cache.
Would be interesting to see how high one could clock those.
3 pinmods and the L2 cache is working, plus a 4.0x multiplier. 400mhz are easily possible. Runs nice
had mmx200 overclocked to 266 mhz @ 3 V This is back when oc was done by physical jumpers on the m-board
Can u pls introduce the K6-233 in the comparison?Thx.
Those prices are steep :o
I like overclocking them with 75 and 83mhz fsb settings on boards that can handle it but they also work with 100mhz fsb with the multiplier at 2.0 or 2.5 without a fuss.
True, you can likely get a ton of extra performance out of this chip.
It is nice that you can use a Socket A or Socket 370 cooler on Socket 7 and vice versa. I used a PIII cooler back in the days with a 200mhz mmx cpu and it ran very cool.
wow, was it really introduced in june? i bought it early july that year. i had no idea it was THAT new.
that pc was one of the best i've ever had. didn't last very long considering the era it was bought in, but when i bought it it was blistering fast. it was also the pc i bought my voodoo2 for, which was what made it so insane.
funny thing it was really cheap in term of my currency. because at the time, real was pretty much on par with the dollar, if not a bit more valuable. so i only spent R$ 1300,00 in the whole pc, and it was freaking high end all around. in contrast, nowadays you can't even buy the ram for a new high end system with that sort of money.
this was my upgrade from the Cyrix 6x86 PR 200+
It was like $600 at launch, double that where I live....
hmmm their was a P266 mmx
or even 300 mmx
@@genghis666 266 was max
@@Untitled_01 nope 😅
@@genghis666 well unless its 266 overclocked. There was literally no 300 from stock
I have this cpu paired with a voodoo2 SLI. I am still using an old AT PSU of 150W... do you think the wattage is too less for such system?
Great video once again. I'd love to see the difference Voodoo1 (or equiv ATI/nVidia) GPU brings to the table! Phil, you rock!
...and then I hear your comment at the end of video! 🤓
Ha, but not in the video next week. I'll see what I can do for another one though :D
You're a legend!
Can't tell if is the slightly increased Mhz bump of 16%, or the increased cache, that gives the 233MMX the lead over the vanilla 200, but it seems that the MMX extensions did nothing in gaming. I remember my Pentium 200Mhz non-mmx beating my friends P166MMX in pretty much every game, from Quake to Carmageddon. He even had a slightly better clocked and more expensive VooDoo card, he had the Orchid Righteous and I had the Maxi Gamer.
Intel switched to Pentium Pro before the Pentium II. The Pentium Pro was a Pentium II without MMX for servers.
Pentium MMX 233 was in my first PC besides a Voodo 1 and 48 MB of Ram. I played Half Life and Diablo 2 (beat Hell) with it. It ran quite poor (below 15 fps) but this was enough for my 13 years old me.
It seems that the performance improvements being seen is predominately coming from the 33 Mhz speed increase. I'm curious though, is turning off the caches an indicator of the performance of the chip architecture? The numbers are interesting at the very least.
No, because the chip architecture is designed with using caches in mind. It's an integral part of the architecture. Nobody would set out to design a turbo engine in a way that the engine also works great without the turbo.
none of your tests used the MMX instructions you should add Pod to list for this since it uses the MMX instructions
This was the cpu of our very first home PC.
Why are the more "more" modern CPU so sensitive to cache disablement?
I remember when people were counterfeiting those stickers or changing the laser engravings, saying a slower or older version of a chip was a faster or newer one. Even legit places could be caught up in that if the fakes were done well.
Why 486 DX2 66? You should have picked the 486 DX4 100.
The "Mega Man X" instruction set
What was great with this Pentium was installing it on a super socket 7 mobo, and make it run at 250 MHz with a 100 MHz bus. Better than a PII-233 for half the price !
I believe I've done a video about exactly that! It was titled something like "what if Intel made a 250 MHz Pentium MMX"
A friend gave me his 233Mhz MMX Pentium system with a Biostar MB8500 TTD motherboard with the Intel 430TX chipset.I tricked it out with some hardware upgrades.Well certainly I added a Diamond Monster 3D card to it as it was a good match.
yes!!!! :) my first one. I still have it.
My first PC my mum got it for me was Pentium 233mhz and it cost aorund 1,700$ USD wish i would have keep it, wonder where i can buy another one.
I would love for you to get your hands on a Pentium Pro or a Rambus ram based system. Probably too expensive.
Me too :) But yea, some parts these days are just too hard to get.
Shame you are not in the US Phil. I have a Pentium Pro CPU and M/B you could of tried
i have this one along with newer motherboard freetech pf5113 I got only around $7 with motherboard in Indonesia
Could you by any chance make a review of a Pentium S 120MHz ?
my first pc back in 1998 run with it :)
To be fair, my 166 MMX ran at 266 for years with overclocking. You know they were downbinning back then! Until one day the fan fell off. Not good back then! Least cpu's should be able to cope with that these days.
Oh to add, after the incident it still ran fine at 166 and I sold it and bought a faster amd! (as 166 was no longer good enough!)
I still wonder about the i200 vs a 166mmx Or i200 vs 200mmx. ( Wonder IF i made some good (prolly bad) choices back then haha)
Could be in interesting project!
and PII 233 vs P233MMX :)
buraxta Also a good idea! I will get to slot 1 soon enough I guess.
Btw, In the old days. I remember thats my slot 1 celeron beated the pentium 2 slot 1 in games. I guess because of the l2 cache being on full speed on the celeron
Would be an interesting project as well mate.
I had a celly 300 and a p2 333. I liked the performance of the celeron better back then. ( both had a voodoo3 )
PhilsComputerLab A benchmark with cpus from 1996-1999 would be very interesting in my opinion. Pentium vs MMX vs K6 vs K6-2 vs K6-3 vs CeleronA vs Pentium 2 vs Pentium 3 Katmai. The benchmarks you made with cpus from that time were great but as far as I know you used only Pentium 1, K6-2, K6-3. It would be very interesting to see all Intel and Amd cpus from that time against itch other :).
how about resident evil 2 original?
For socket 7 I would always look to the AMD K6 series. I had a K62 500mhz and that was able to play pretty much all titles at up to 1024 x 768 with a decent graphics card.
Were the original K6 compatible to the socket 7 or did they required the super S7?
I don't know for sure. I am pretty sure AMD made some chips for socket 7. The one I had was a Super 7 one. I am not sure but I think there were converter boards that let you use Super 7 CPU's on Socket 7.
For those faster AMD cpus he would be using a Super7 motherboard as it supports fsb speeds faster than the 66mhz bus on regular socket7 boards. I remember reading about these in PC magazines back in the day.
Great CPU and vídeo.
Should add Quake to these benchmarks especially if your testing against Cyrix
You do know that the video is already done, and you can't add content to an existing video...
I bought that Joystick At Costco Win98 Mech Warrior 2 & Ghost something... Expansion pak best times of my life Sound Blaster 16 ..
Killed it back in the day with overclocking x.x :(...
Some speculate that MMX stands for "MultiMedia eXtensions". Yet Another Rumor.
this is the first Chip I overclocked, I'd crank it up to 300Mhz.
The last CPU they made without Meltdown or ME.
Prices have gone down since this video was made. Just snagged one from eBay for $15 USD very easily.
Awesome, love it!
Thanks man!
Can these be overclocked at all I remember back in the day doing some overclocking by setting the on board jumpers
Yes you can overclock the bus and multiplier!
Have this in tablet pc along ESS Audiodrive soun chip. It is just he perfect DOS machine :D
Just sold all my Voodoo2 cards earlier this year and i still have a few 233mmx chips along with a mountain of socket 7 cpus
How would the MMX compare to its older brother when both run at the same clockspeed? In other words, I wonder how the clock to clock performance of both CPU's is.
There should be a review on it. The tests are the same, so you can compare. The regular Pentium only came in the 200 MHz version as the fastest model.
I'll have to look into it. I remember upgrading my Pentium 120MHz to a 200MHz CPU (that I got from a broken Gateway system) back in the day.
The 90's were good times for computer enthousiasts!
My 1st DIY CPU....233MMX
My first setup 1997 pentium 2 233mmx
i was playing games on my 233 yesterday
These processors with a voodoo 1 or rendition verite would play ok tomb raider?
i had a Rendition V2100 (Diamond Stealth II) which had a special patch for Tomb Raider, making it run very smooth.
I liked that card.
Yes.
I had a clone around that time and I can't seem to recall any information about including the brand. I want to say it was a Cyrix, but I feel like it was something else.
Well there was the AMD K-6 and also the IDT WinChip?
IDT Winchip- that's it! I think I had the 200mhz version, gaming sucked, but it was an improvement over the P100 (it may have been a P90) my AST Advantage PC came with. I think I got that in 1996, then got the Winchip in 1998. Man I miss those days where such a minor upgrade would lead to significant improvements in games and boot time.
Yea I don't have any of those I'm afraid :( Would love to test them though, especially the top models.