|
 |
||
|
Part 5 |
|
|
||
|
Part 5 |
The PL-K6-III is PowerLeap's latest version of the ever popular PowerLeap adapter. This version is designed especially for the AMD K6-III. Unfortunately the AMD K6-III has certain voltage requirements not known at the time the PL-Pro/MMX Plus was made, however the Plus should still run your 400 AMD K6-III CPUs just fine. The PL-K6-III looks visibly like the Pl-Pro/MMX adapter except it has a second inductor coil (wire-wrapped doughnut) - it's needed to handle the higher power consumption of the K6-III. And on the underside, by the dip switches, is a self-repairing fuse for protection against power surges.
The AMD K6-III, which this adapter has been designed for, has a major advantage - its tri-level cache system. By placing the L2 cache on the CPU, the AMD K6-III makes any system's L2 cache a L3 cache. The CPU cache is also running much faster than the motherboard cache. Since it is on the CPU it runs at the speed of the CPU; this makes the bus speed less important and can allow a 66 MHz bus speed to achieve great speeds. See my page "400 MHz AMD K6-2 Vs. AMD K6-III" for benchmark results showing the benefits of the CPU L2 cache.
The CPU cache is also beneficial for systems without motherboard cache. A simple upgrade with an AMD K6-III processor can give a cache-less system the cache that you always wanted; read my web page "The AMD K6-III A Solution for Computers without L2 cache" for more information on this.
The PL-K6-III has clock multiplier controls for 2.5x to 6.0x, allowing for a maximum CPU core speed of 400 MHz on a 66 MHz FSB motherboard, 450 MHz on a 75 MHz FSB motherboard, 500 MHz on a 83 MHz FSB motherboard, and 600 MHz on a 100 MHz FSB motherboard.
The PL-K6-III has an Independent Power Supply which isolates the CPU from the power plane of the motherboard; this is what allows the adapter to provide the needed CPU core voltage to run the advanced K6-III processors. This adapter also has features to prevent your CPU from overheating, for example if the "fan fails and CPU overheats, the clock frequency is gradually reduced to a level that allows system to stay up and running until situation is corrected". These features are a must for those of you who want to try to overclock CPU's to help prevent you from frying your system.
Also included is PowerLeap's newest "CPU Control Panel 4.0" software with integrated CPU Cooling Technology; no longer will you need to run "Rain" with your CPU control panel since PowerLeap put these capabilities right into the CPU control panel. The CPU control panel also supports advanced enhancements, such as Write Allocate feature that can increase your performance.
The PL-K6-III performs great, just check out this graph to see how the PowerLeap adapter has allowed me to increase my system's speed over time. All tests were performed on my PB 640 motherboard and to think Packard Bell says the PB 640 motherboard can not achieve speeds over 200 MHz non-MMX. Thanks to PowerLeap, my speeds have increased 200x over what my system was designed for.The PowerLeap adapter can do the same for you.
The above graph shows how my performance has increased with each new PowerLeap adapter, and PL-K6-III is no exception. My system performs better than ever with the PL-K6-III. Complete benchmarks for the tests shown on the above chart are shown on these two web pages "AMD K6-2 Performance Increase" and "400 MHz AMD K6-2 Vs. AMD K6-III".
If your system is in need of a CPU upgrade, then the PowerLeap adapter may be able to help give your system the boost you are looking for. Remember that your BIOS may need to be upgraded, or at least updated, to run the AMD K6-III processors. I had to update my system with a Mr. BIOS upgrade.
