This site has been accessed  times since July 1st, 1997

JUNE 30th, 1997: These are optimal settings. They are not predicted by the AMI BIOS optimal settings nor are they predicted by the optimal settings published for the SKE/PII. Surprisingly, the PCI Frame Buffer USWC must be enabled for the FX83/Pro200/512 to run stable. Differences from these settings and the BIOS settings posted by Megatrends for the SKE/PII configuration indicate that the Pro200/512 has unique BIOS requirements. It took over 100 hours of testing to arrive at these optimal settings. My previous experience in tuning BIOS settings centered on graphics stability. With the FX83, the overriding goal was to achieve stability of the SCSI chain. Enabling any of the disabled settings shown in the above table results in instability. Again, enabling PCI Frame Buffer USWC is absolutely neccessary for stable operation. I am still in disbelief, but I have tested this over and over. Key WinMarks with these settings are: Bus Graph = 80.3, High Disk = 4950, Bus Disk = 1680, and CPU32 = 625. I expect Bus Graphics to approach or break 90 with the Millennium. BTW, these scores question the notion that a Pentium MMX beats a Pentium Pro when running OSR2 at the same clock speeds. More about this later in the week.

JULY 01, 1997: The verdict is still out on these settings. The graphics driver appears to interact with the AMI bios settings to further complicate things. The above settings were arrived at using the 128-2 VRAM with the 3.41 drivers. Now there is a Millennium installed. I am testing 3.62, 3.61, 3.51, 3.41. Each of these driver versions has their own quirks that further complicate BIOS settings. More on this later. It is too early to be certain, but I might have a stable configuration using the 3.62 drivers (Business Graphics 87.1, High End Graphics 39.1). If stable, this score challenges a P200MMX at 3X66.

JULY 02, 1997: Although I find it hard to believe, I have the FX83/Pro200/512 running stable using 128MPEDO with 50nS timing and the Matrox 3.62 drivers. If you have followed that saga of the 3.62 drivers you know that they are tricky but fast. I completed "all tests" in Winbench97 at both 60 and 50nS. The BIOS settings under chipset setup are all disabled except for PCI Frame Buffer USWC. Interestingly, disabling these settings does not appear to hurt performance when using the 3.62 driver. Enabling Read Around Write and CPU to PCI posting increases performance with other drivers, but these settings make the 3.62 configuration unstable. Having only the PCI frame buffer enabled, allows using 3.62. The 3.62 driver gives more performance than what is lost by disabling BIOS settings. That is, I can enable more settings using the 3.41 Matrox driver or the 3.41 Nine driver. Enabling these BIOS settings does not make up for the performance inherent in 3.62 if your able to run it. Matrox appears to have released a temperamental race car. They retracted the driver. If you configure for the 3.62 driver, there is considerable gain in performance.

I am using the 3.62 configuration for a few days in application computing and continue to run benchmarks. If the configuration is truely stable, I will begin publishing charted benchmarks for the FX83/Pro200/512. Arriving at this optimal configuration has been a long road. There were many counter intuitive paths. Perhaps AMI could produce a BIOS more friendly toward the Pro CPU or two BIOS versions depending on the CPU in use. To be fair, the MMX is more amenable to over clocking. Although the Pro holds its own at the same clock values, the MMX can move up with faster bus speeds. If the Pro holds its own against the Pentium MMX in OSR2 (actually, it dusts the MMX in all but graphics), I suspect the FX83/Pro will pull far ahead in NT4.0. I will be comparing OSs' on the FX83 down the road.

For now, expect to see HX83 vs FX83 comparisons. Considerations of price and performance undoubtedly casts value on the differences. In the end, let me say that this FX83 kicks serious $%@^.

JULY 03, 1997: Another rather unpredictable quirk surfaced in the BIOS settings. Despite, that the FX83 runs at 50nS with the Matrox 3.62 driver (described above), the performance appears noticeably improved when running at 60nS. Oh well, better performance at what appears to be a less aggressive setting, I take it. Something about looking a gift horse in the mouth comes to mind. Nevertheless, apparent contradictions of this nature questions the maturity in the BIOS.

JULY 04, 1997: The HX83/200MMX is running smooth as silk these days. I am using it at 3x75 as a work horse for my "real" job. Testing continues on the FX83/PPro200/512. Unable to resist, I temporarily over clocked the FX83 to 233. It cranks out a cool CPU32 of 725. There is an occasional blue screen declaring a failed VxD. Nevertheless the system continues without locking -- even when running Winbench97. I suspect that, at the 233 clock speed, the 3.62 will have to be replaced by 3.41. The OS has taken quite a beating. I am still on the second install of OSR2. Scandisk has activated dozens of times as I pushed the limits of performance. Repartitioning the Cheetah and reloading the OS might stabilize the 233 configuration. Soon, I will publish HX83 Vs. FX83 benchmarks.

JULY 04, 1997: I tested "real world" comparisons between the HX83 and FX83 systems this morning. As part of my "real" job, I work with digitized histological data. For this, I use a Sony DKC5000 digital camera. This camera has outboard memory and transfers image data to the PC over the SCSI bus. The image size is fixed at 5M (TIFF format). Often, I work with 10 (and more) images in memory at a time. Thus, it is not unusual for me to select 10 thumbnails in Picture Publisher representing 50 Meg of image data stored on the Cheetah. The FX83/Pro200/512 system, running at 200MHz, loads and displays 10 of these images in 13 seconds. That is, the FX83 loads and displays 10 images of 5M each for a total of 50M of data in 13 Secs. The HX83/200MMX configured with the same hardware and running at 225 Mhz (3X75) loads these same images in 30 Secs. The magnitude of this difference is not predicted from standard benchmarks. I only wish I had a PII 233 to make this same comparison. I spent a fortune on the Pro200/512. I feel better to know that, for what I do, the Pro has an edge over the much less expensive 200MMX.

JULY 05, 1997: Oops, as it turns out, I had a bad SCSI cable. On a few lazy occassions, I tested the FX83 with the cover off and laying on it's side. The blue screens at 233MHz went away. I doubted that heat had anything to do with it. If anything, the system runs hotter with the case off. I modified the case with high CFM fans, all of which are hardwired to run continuously. The Cheetah and 3.5" frame remain comfortably warm -- not what I would consider hot. I suspected that there was a cabling problem. Close inspection of the SCSI III cable to the Cheetah revealed that one side of the cable retainer was not seated. I removed the connector entirely, cut back the ribbon, and reinstalled the connector with a bench vise. Susequent benchmarks showed higher Disk Marks. Nevertheless, all of what I have reported to date regarding BIOS settings appears to hold. I am considering buying a set of Teflon insulated silver SCSI cables. I know that the engineers balk at this sort of thing. I use home brew teflon/silver inconnects and power cables in my hi fidelity system. Engineering types have all but sent me letter bombs. Oh well, another story.

The FX83/PPro200/512 is running rock solid at 200MHz with 128M PEDO and Matrox 3.62 drivers. For practical purposes, it runs fine at 233. However, I have this stubborn criterion that I will not compare benchmarks unless the configuration successfully completes all tests of Winbench97. Although each individual test is completed, when running "all tests" the system locks on high end disk marks (no more blue since repairing the cable). Winbench97 scores for individual tests at 233MHz (1024X768X16@85) are: High End Disk = 5300, Business Disk = 1750, CPU32 = 725, Business Graphics = 99, and High End Graphics = 43.6. I suspect that stable 233MHz might be possible with ultra high quality EDO RAM rather than the PEDO that I am using. I should have 128M of Advanced Megatrends Memory (EDO) in a few days. This memory is for another system, but I will intercept it long enough to test in the FX83.

On the other hand, I am not sure that different memory will matter. Unlike the PentiumMMX and the 430HX chipset, the memory timing on the FX83/Pro200/512 has only minor effect on performance. In fact, going from 50nS to 70nS causes only a minor drop in performance. Running at 70nS has a permissive effect on enabling other BIOS settings. Thus, using 70nS timing actually increases performance by allowing stable operation with additional BIOS features enabled.

July 08, 1997: The FX83 is running smoothly at 3X66. I have been using it for image analysis, image processing, internet, word processing, etc. After two days of heavy use, there was not one episode of instability. Charted benchmarks should appear in the next few days. I have the opportunity to give up my Pro200/512 CPU with compensation by a PII 266. This is a tough decision for me. Everything suggests that the PII 266 should blast this Pro200/512 out of the water. Nevertheless, the Pro200/512 is a special chip. I have not decided what I will do. I often opt for elegance over brute power. Help.

August 01, 1997: I am still awaiting my new PII/300. Hopefully, the cpu will be here within a few weeks. At that time, I will continue with the diary.

September 01, 1997: The PII/300 is still not readily available. In the meantime, I borrowed a PPro180/256. I plan to ressurrect the FX83A with the Pro180 until the PII/300 arrives. I am wondering how the FX83A and the FX83A-II perform when each is running a PII? I suspect that the simplified design of the FX83A-II might make this board more tolerant of aggressive BIOS settings with the PII/300 CPU. I am considering retiring my FX83A to PPro200/256 server duties. I have the memory termination board. Considering that the FX83 was running stable without this board, I suspect it should be rock solid with more aggressive BIOS settings and OC'd to 233 with the memory bus properly terminated (out board termintation is not an issue with the PII). I have a PII/300 on the way. I might bench it in the FX83A for a few weeks and then purchase the FX83A-II. Although, if Megatrends has any new "trick" PII boards planned, I might get a newer board.

September 28, 1997: So to shorten up an already long story. I fired up the FX83 PII300 without the retention hardware. Let me say, the bad boy flies right along. More importantly, it is very stable. It has never crashed through hours of BIOS setting fiddling and WB97 testing. I had a problem with the newer Matrox drivers. They are a bitch to uninstall. I had this problem before. Anyway, there was a problem with USWC writing and the Matrox 3.63 driver. I installed the latest FX83 Bios and fixed the problem.

I still have not done much systematic testing. The system is running on 32M of RAM. I just can't get too excited about controlled bench marking because I know I won't use the system with 32M. Thus the marks will not be comparable. I will see what happens with 128M PEDO. No doubt this will make it a bit finicky.

I can tell you already, my HX83/200MMX seems slow. I really think that there is no doubt but what you should get the PII300. This might be a different chip than the PII266. Supposedly, the ECC capabilities are different. One thing that surprises me is that the PII300 runs cool. I am not kidding -- it is barely luke warm even after hours. Megatrends shipped it with an AVID PII fan. This fan/heatsink is the same size as the PII assembly. I really can't compare it to the "boxed" PII. I have never seen one.

So far, the fX83 is configured at 4.5X66. WB97 scores are 128 for BG (Mil4m BIOS 2.7 driver 3.63) and 824 for CPU32. I won't be surprised to see it break 1000 when maximally tuned (well, maybe a little surprised). The BIOS reports 133 rather than 300 for 4.5X66. This is curious. Briefly, I configured the FX83 for 4X75. The BIOS "correctly" reported 300. Oddly the benchmarks were lower than for 4.5X66. Admittedly, I detuned the BIOS a bit, but I doubt that it was enough to make so great a difference that the graphics at 75MHz would be slower than at 66mHz for the same clock speed. I wonder if the 66mHz setting might actually equal 333/4.5 = 74. I doubt that it could be this high or I would have to detune the BIOS at 4.5X, but I suspect it must be greater than 66. I don't see how increasing the bus speed while maintiaining the same clock frequency could decrement performance.

I am off to the lab to swap memory and grab my 2940UW back from the Forum server. Maybe the Adaptec Bios 1.25 will work with the new FX83 BIOS. I have been bouncing this controller around trying to find a home for it. I just bought a new SymbiosW (not UW). It works great in the FX83. I will put this controller in the STE/166 and retrieve the 2940UW for the FX83. Thus, the HX83 Forum server (STE/166) will be down for a bit.

I suspect it will be awhile before I start playing with OCing. I just received the Revolution 3d card. It is about 10% faster (2D) that the Millennium. However, I don't think the display is as good as the 128-2. It is more on par with the Millennium.

In short summary. After one day of playing with this system, I have no hesitation to recommend the FX83/PII300 combination to you, Bill, or Ian. The system is rock solid. Winstone 97 has been running flawlessly on demo mode for the past 12 hours without interruption. The Nine Revolution 3D is installed. What a great performer! The WB97 BG is 150.

September 29, 1997: In my last e-mail I referred to the SymbiosW as being faster than the 2940UW. I doubted this and reinstalled the NCR825. I was not surprised to see that this time it ran at par with the 2940UW. Earlier when I clocked the FX83 at 4X75 it got a little flaky and I had to de-tune the BIOS. This, together with the lower bench marks, made me not wanting to risk destroying my HD so I went back to 4.5X66. I have the BIOS settings wide open (including 50ns memory) at this clocking. Well, I thought, "what the hey, why not try to OC with the NCR825?" Plus, I did not try to OC with the 9R3D. I expected trouble because at 4X75 there was nothing suspicious about the 2940W so I figured it was fine. I have a routine whereby I always boot from a floppy when I know that the system is the edge. This way, I can run a program (scandisk) to see if things are working in DOS before I risk my Win95 configuration. I was feeling brave. I did not detune the BIOS when I booted the floppy at 4.5X75 (337.5). Everything looked fine and scandisk ran fine. I let Win95 boot and, to my surprise, it booted fine. This is, despite yesterday, when I had to detune at 4X75. It must be that either the 2940UW or the Matrox was failing. I suspect the 2940UW, but I am surprised that I did not catch it before. Oh well, live and learn. So, on a lark, I discovered that the FX83/PII300 is capable of 4.5X75 with the BIOS wide open. As I write this, Winbench 97 is running all WinMarks. So far so good. I did a single run on CPU32 and scored 912. Business Graphics was 152. Earlier I had a single run on business graphic of 150 at 4.5X66. This appears to have been a fluke. Now the system is marking 144 for Business Graphics at 4.5X66. Thus, 152 is an increment in performance. I guess it is linear as well. I have not done the math. Now I am really convinced. Get the FX83A(II) and the PII300. It still runs cool at 4.5X75! The Winbench "all WinMarks" series completed without a problem - cpu32 = 910, BG = 154.

September 29, 1997: I swapped out the 32 M of AMM EDO and installed 128M Toshiba PEDO (from the same manufacturer that makes the AMM simms). My experience with the HX chipset is that you have to back off on the BIOS settings as you populate more banks and as you break the 64M barrier. In the case of the FX83/PII300, the 128M installed without sacrificing the aggressive bios settings used with 32M. I am amazed. The Toshiba 128M is running at 50nS with everything enabled. A single Winbench 97 BG run marked at 160. A series of "all WinMarks" is running as I write this. I don't know how to divide the credit among the FX83, PII300, Toshiba PEDO, Symbios825, Nine R3D, or Cheetah, but this system is impressive. It is nearly dummy proof, yet it cooks. The next frontier? Figuring out the data integrity mode settings and what they mean. There are four choices -- Disabled, Parity, ECC level 1, ECC level 2. I have not a clue what are the ramifications of these settings. There has been a guy posting lately (Ron Reaugh) who appears knowledgeable. Perhaps he would be willing to write an FAQ.

September 30, 1997: The 4.5X75 configuration is proving to be extremely stable. This configuration has not locked through hours of benchmarking and general computing. The FX83/PII is a dream in Photoshop. Tweaking the bios raised CPU32 to 922 and Business Graphics to 162. Soon I will start systematic testing of the chipset settings. Expect to see performance charts on the Benchmarking page later in the week. In addition to my enthusiasm for the FX83/PII300, the Nine Revolution 3D is super. Still, the 128-2 gives a slightly better display on my Nanao T2-17.

October 1, 1997: Already, the FX83/PII is spoiling me. The system just cooks. It is running the 128M of PEDO wide open with ECC enabled (whatever the Hell ECC really is). Typical cpu32 = 922 and BG = 162. Already, I am itching to try 83MHz. Supposedly, the PII300 is unique among the PII chips in ECC support. Enabling ECC on the FX83 actually increases performance. Another interesting thing about the FX83 was that at 4X75, with the 2940UW, the system became unstable. There was occassional freezing during the graphics of testing of WB97. About the time I reached for the reset button there would be HD activity and system recovery. Everything was exactly the same as when any other computer I tested has a hardware lock. But, the FX83/PII300 would come back to life. I don't know what this was about. The instability was due to the 2940UW. Why the freezes did not translate into hardware locks is beyond me.

October 10, 1997: Because of my "real" job I have not had a chance to publish the WB97 scores for the FX83/PII300. Instead, I am using the system for real world computing. It continues to run flawlessly fast at 4.5X75. I am using Photoshop, Micrografx Suite, WordPro, Excel, Word, and typical internet applications. Not once has the system locked. This is with the BIOS set wide open and 128M PEDO. Typical WB97 scores are BG = 160, CPU32 = 922, HEHD = 5700. This system is a dream.

October 27, 1997: Other commitments to my work have prevented me from publishing benchmarks in the typical format. My teaching (Anatomy) involves extensive use of visual materials. For the past few months the FX83/300(4.5X75) has received a work out in PhotoShop, Designer, Scanning applications, networking, word processing, etc. It performs wonderfully. I can't comment on games. I hoped to start publishing benchmarks this week but the baseline performance dropped about 1-2%. Typical WB97 scores are now BG = 158, CPU32 = 912, HEHD = 5600. I can't find the cause. I am tempted to reformat, but I don't have time to rebuild the system. With this slight drop in performance previous benchmarks can't be compared. Thus, benchmarks might not be forthcoming for a while. This modest performance drop is not noticed in application computing. I am building two more copies of this system for graphics workstations.

November 2, 1997: I recently made another attempt to run at 4X83. DOS command line appeared to run fine. W95 ran for a bit, but corrupted on the next boot. I have new AMM standard EDO memory ordered for other systems. I will swap out the PEDO for standard EDO and try again. I suspect I can hit the right BIOS settings to make this work, but it is very time consuming when a failure means you have to reformat. I have no intention of routinely running at 83MHz. The FX83/PII300 continues to run stable as a rock at 4.5X300. This system has become my everyday "work" computer. I can't afford to have it flake simply because I am pushing the bus. I finally posted WB97 charts of benchmarks over this past weekend.