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Date |
: Mar 6th, 2002 |
| Category |
: CPU |
| Manufacturer |
: VIA |
| Author |
: Jin-Wei Tioh |
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Strictly speaking, CPUMark doesn't just test the integer performance of a CPU. Rather, it measures the efficiency of the CPU coupled with the memory subsystem (especially cache) in performing integer operations. This is the area where the VIA C3 is supposed to shine. However, something seems to be holding it back, and we can only surmise the main culprit is the C3's L2 cache. As we will see in the next section, it seems that the C3's L2 cache is not too efficient, which hampers its overall performance.
On the other hand, FPUMarks can be taken as an indication of a CPU's FPU (floating point unit) performance. This is due to the fact that most floating point operations are not L2 cache intensive. As can be observed in the graph, FPU performance is the C3's Achilles heel, as has always been with the older Cyrix and WinChip CPUs. This hardly comes as a surprise, since the C3 is derived from the Centaur x86 core, a.k.a Samuel. Moreover, VIA is targetting the C3 at business and value users, who mainly use internet and productivity applications. These applications do not (or rarely) use floating point or MMX instructions. Thus, a weaker FPU would not be of much consequence in this scenario.
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