If you're anything like the thousands of others out there that crave performance the minute it hits the streets, you know what it feels like to shell out thousands of dollars into a top of the line Pentium II system based on a 440FX motherboard only to be told that your motherboard won't support the newest processors and graphics accelerators just 6 months later. It's definitely unfortunate, but it is reality, that the computer world moves at a pace unmatched by any other market on the face of the earth.

The one thing that annoys users the most is that when they do happen to shell out these thousands of dollars for a complete system overhaul, they are never told that they may be stuck with an obsolete hunk of silicon in a couple of months. Why don't manufacturers just stick to one simple design and allow for complete backwards compatibility? To put it plainly and simply, the technology changes too quickly to allow for a product to be completely compatible with everything that was released prior to its introduction. If a manufacturer even attempted to do so, we'd be stuck with bulky motherboards, featuring 4 PCI, 3 ISA, and 2 VLB slots with 8 - 30 pin SIMM slots, 4 - 72 pin slots, and a couple DIMM slots to please everyone. Somewhere along the line, manufacturers realized that if they made a change to something that was apparently "better" the market would be forced to follow, regardless of the upgrade costs, thus the "obsolete" PC was created.

Remember the release of the Pentium MMX? The chip required a unique new core voltage of 2.8v to run properly, this was an incredible change from the 3.3/3.52v setting which was standard on most Socket-7 motherboards at the time. If you happened to be one of the unlucky souls that purchased an older Socket-7 motherboard that absolutely didn't support any voltages outside of that 3.3/3.52v range then you were out of luck and your performance pretty much topped out with the Pentium classic processors. Unless

Assuming that there is a group of users out there that have these older Socket-7 motherboards, with the desire to run Windows 98, surf the net, and run their now sluggish applications at these incredible speeds they are hearing about from K6-2 and Pentium II users alike, if you could introduce a processor that would make use of that 3.3/3.52v voltage range those boards use you'd be able to please a large number of users that were left without any upgrade path. This was IDT's chance, and it was as good as any of a marketing decision to tailor to these users, instead of competing with AMD and Intel for control of leading the market (an often difficult and fund consuming task, it's always easier to follow the pack than to lead it) IDT made it their goal to make the best low-cost processor, and that they have definitely done.

Taking advantage of the oversight of virtually all microprocessor manufacturers, IDT decided it was about time to stop fighting for control of the world and start tailoring to the needs of the users that don't have the interest or the funds (or both) to pursue a new upgrade every 6 months. This is where the new Winchip 2-3D comes into play.

The unique nature of the Winchip 2 makes it ideal for low power environments, especially notebooks, however it is doubtful that you'll see too many Winchip 2 based laptops simply because of the demand for the chip.

The only requirements for running a Winchip 2 processor in your Socket-7 motherboard are support for the 66MHz front side bus frequency (standard on all Socket-7 boards), and a 1.5x, 2.0x or 3.0x clock multiplier (standard on all Socket-7 boards), and a BIOS update for Winchip 2 support (available from your motherboard manufacturer). Chances are that you'll meet all of those requirements, even if you have an older 430FX Socket-7 motherboard, and if that is the case, then you'll be tempted by the rest of the Winchip 2 specifications.

The Winchip 2 brings quite a powerful set of features to the table with its introduction, a full 64KB L1 cache split into the conventional 32KB 4 way set associative data and 32KB 2 way set associative instruction set cache brings the Winchip 2 to the level of AMD's K6 and K6-2 line of processors in terms of a highly advanced core. The amount of L1 cache on the chip of the Winchip 2 is already twice that of the Pentium II, and is obviously where a great percentage of the business performance of the processor is derived from, don't interpret this incorrectly though since the Winchip 2 is definitely not a competitor to the Pentium II in terms of performance.

Also following in the footsteps of AMD, IDT chose to license the 3DNow! instructions to be used along side the two independent MMX units on the Winchip 2. Unlike Intel's utterly disappointing MMX technology, the inclusion of the 3DNow! instructions on the Winchip 2 breathes new life into the possibility of the Winchip 2 being a processor that'll even tailor to the needs of the gamer, to a certain extent of course. For those of you not familiar with AMD's 3DNow! instructions, a brief explanation of their application is as follows: (taken from the AnandTech AMD K6-2 Review)

3DNow! exploits a technology known as Single Instruction Multiple Data execution, or SIMD for short. What this technology does is, as the name implies, it applies a single command (or instruction) to multiple sets of data simultaneously. A real life example of something like SIMD execution would be much like picking berries. Instead of picking a berry off of a bush, washing it, then returning to the bush to collect more you could simply collect a handful of berries at once and retrieve them simultaneously. The key to understanding SIMD is the simultaneous execution of the instruction, therefore saving time. SIMD is not the only benefit the Winchip 2 receives from AMD's 3DNow! instructions, however it is definitely a plus. If you have ever written any code that requires heavy floating point calculations you will know that floating point division is an extremely slow process from the perspective of the CPU. AMD saw this as a major problem and integrated a reciprocal multiplication function into their 3DNow! instruction set. For example, instead of dividing a number by 4, using reciprocal multiplication you can achieve the same result by simply multiplying by the fraction 1/4. While this may not seem like much, you must understand that a processor can multiply faster than it can divide, in this case, instead of dividing by 4 you are multiplying by 1/4, which can make a world of difference in terms of performance on a more complex level. Since the reciprocal multiplication function is hard-coded on the Winchip 2's 3DNow! units it actually provides a healthy performance increase in many situations.

IDT's support for 3Dnow! is a win for both AMD, since their technology will begin to grow its roots in a market unique to IDT customers, and at the same time it is a win for IDT, as their FPU and gaming performance has been improved with the Winchip 2 to a point where playing the occasional game of Quake 2 on a Winchip 2 based system isn't horrendously slow (keep in mind that it isn't blazing fast either).

The effects of an increased FSB frequency on the Winchip 2, as is the case on the Cyrix M2, isn't all that great (relatively speaking in comparison to the AMD K6 or Intel Pentium MMX). This is one reason why the Winchip 2 is available in normally unacceptable speed settings for Socket-7 processors (i.e. 240MHz). The first revisions of the Winchip 2 will only allow for integral clock multipliers (i.e. 2.0x, 3.0x, 4.0x), with the commonly used 1.5x/3.5x clock multiplier being remapped to the 4.0x internal setting on the Winchip 2 to extend backwards compatibility for users that want to make use of the 266MHz chips. Later versions of the chip will support the 100MHz FSB, and will be intended for true, low-cost upgrades for Super7 users, however for now the K6-2 still seems to be the most affordable and highest performing Super7 solution, in spite of the < $60 price tag of the Winchip 2. The upcoming 233, 250 and 266MHz Winchip 2 offerings will be made possible using 2.33, 2.5, and 2.66 clock multipliers that will be mapped to internally to allow for complete backwards compatibility for older motherboards (meaning a 2.0x setting on your motherboard could result in a 2.33x clock multiplier for the CPU itself). Not a bad immediate roadmap for a "low-cost" processor.

For the sake of putting the Winchip 2's incredible backwards compatibility to the test, AnandTech took the 225MHz Winchip 2 used in the review, and popped it in a few of the more popular Socket-7 HX and TX boards of the time. Even without any BIOS upgrades, the systems booted up just fine, although in most cases the processor was detected as a "66MHz CPU" or a "80486DX at 66MHz."

Obtaining BIOS support from most manufacturers for the Winchip 2 was a bit of a problem, even the highly supported ABIT AX5 (Socket-7 TX motherboard) failed to properly identify the speed of the Winchip 2, this was after AnandTech flashed the BIOS on the two year old motherboard to the latest revision on ABIT's Taiwanese website. The performance of the processor was not hindered by this oversight, however it can be a bit annoying, so before venturing into a Winchip 2 purchase, be sure that you can obtain a BIOS upgrade for your current motherboard with support for the processor.

AnandTech also installed the Winchip 2 in a more recently manufactured motherboard, the FIC PA-2013, which properly recognized and configured the processor as an IDT Winchip 2 running at 225MHz, however benchmarks improved by only a few tenths of a point when running at 100MHz x 2.0 on the PA-2013 in comparison to the 75MHz x 3.0 setting on the older AX5 TX motherboard. Bringing us to the next point, overclocking. The Winchip 2 225 simply would not overclock at all, even with increased cooling, the 240MHz setting was a possibility but definitely a dream before a reality as the test system would crash before starting Windows 98. Considering that you're going to be spending less than $50 for a Winchip 2 running at 225MHz, you can't really complain about not being able to overclock the chip to 240MHz.

The Socket-7/Super7 Test System Configuration was as follows:

• AMD K6 233, AMD K6-2 350, AMD K6-3 450 (engineering sample), IDT Winchip 2 225
• ABIT AX5 Revision 2.23 (TX Chipset 512KB L2 cache) FIC PA-2013 w/ 2MB L2 Cache
• 64MB PC100 SDRAM
• Western Digital Caviar AC35100 - UltraATA
• Matrox Millennium G200 AGP Video Card (8MB)
• Matrox Millennium PCI Video Card (4MB - for TX tests)

The Pentium II comparison system differed only in terms of the processor and motherboard in which case the following components were used:

• Intel Celeron 300, Intel Celeron 300A, Intel Pentium II 400, Intel Pentium II 450
• ABIT BH6 Pentium II BX Motherboard

The following drivers were common to both test systems:

The benchmark suite consisted of the following applications:

• Ziff Davis Winstone 98 under Windows 98
• Ziff Davis Winstone 99 under Windows 98
• Ziff Davis Winbench 99 under Windows 98
• Quake 2 v3.17 using demo1.dm2 and Brett "3 Fingers" Jacobs Crusher.dm2 demo

All Winstone tests were run at 1024 x 768 x 16 bit color, all gaming performance tests were run at 800 x 600 x 16 bit color. 3DNow! support was enabled.

For the in-depth gaming performance tests Brett "3 Fingers" Jacobs Crusher.dm2 demo was used to simulate the worst case scenario in terms of Quake 2 performance, the point at which your frame rate will rarely drop any further. In contrast, the demo1.dm2 demo was used to simulate the ideal situation in terms of Quake 2 performance, the average high point for your frame rate in normal play. The range covered by the two benchmarks can be interpreted as the range in which you can expect average frame rates during gameplay.

As you can see, the Winchip 2 running at 225MHz, is already faster than Intel's cacheless Celeron 300, and closing in on the AMD K6 233 in terms of business application performance. While this may not seem like much to us now with the K6-3 on the horizon and the Pentium III up and running, for those users still crunching away on Pentium 133's, this is a major performance improvement.

The performance of the chip is truly amazing, especially considering that it will bring you this performance regardless of what motherboard you install it on, all for a price that is less than a new PCI video card or another stick of RAM.

Gaming Performance

Although its FPU is definitely not its strongpoint, the Winchip 2 can definitely make use of its 3DNow! support in games and does allow for some gaming pleasure to be taken from your system. The implementation of 3DNow! on the Winchip 2 is inferior to that of the K6-2, however it is present. If you are a true gamer, you're probably going to want to save up and shell out a little more cash for a processor with a better FPU, as the Winchip 2 is still primarily a Windows 9x business application processor.

What about the Cyrix 6x86MX or the M-II? At a clock for clock comparison, the Winchip is not only faster than Cyrix's offerings in terms of business application performance, its FPU and 3DNow! performance brings much more to the table than Cyrix has been able to deliver, even with their longer experience in the market. The Winchip 2 is closer to a K6 than a 6x86MX in overall performance.

The Winchip 2 is probably not the chip you've been waiting for to stick in your next system, and the odds are against you ever going out and specifically looking for the "latest Winchip 2." If you do happen to be in a predicament where an upgrade is necessary and it seems like there are no options other than a new motherboard with a new processor (sometimes even entailing a RAM/video card upgrade depending on your system configuration), the Winchip 2 is a pretty decent alternative to the sometimes unreliable and costly overdrive processor upgrades.

The 225MHz model as tested by AnandTech should retail for less than $50, and with a little searching you may be able to hit that $40 mark, however finding the chips in stock may be a bigger deal than you think, IDT never grew too popular in the states with the C6, and the Winchip 2 may unfortunately follow in its older brother's footsteps.

The future of IDT, as stated by their roadmap, is to basically continue the journey for the best low-cost microprocessor on the planet. Later this year, IDT will begin shipping the Winchip 3, which will bump the speed up to 266MHz and include a full 128KB of L1 cache to avoid including a costly L2 cache on-die as AMD will experiment with on their K6-3 processor. Towards the end of 1999, we should be able to expect IDT's newly redesigned core to begin to surface in announcements of the Winchip 4, a processor that should operate in the 400 - 500MHz frequency range while maintaining a high level of backwards compatibility.

While IDT is still a few steps away from stealing the lime light from their closest competitors, there will be at least a few users out there that will be pleased to know that their 2 year old investments are still secure with IDT behind the wheel.