Published in APC, March 2001

Cyrix was once considered a serious rival to AMD in the Intel cloning processor market, but the company has had a relatively low profile since it was sold off by National Semiconductor in August 1999. However, under the direction of new owner Via Technologies, Cyrix has recently re-entered the budget PC market with the Cyrix III.

AMD is competing directly with Intel in the top-end processor arena, but the Cyrix III is unashamedly targeted at the budget PC market, and its main competitors are Intel's Celeron and AMD's Duron. To date, no major PC manufacturer has signed up to use the chip, and Via has been focusing its promotional efforts on the small run white box market, where price is often a bigger consideration than performance.

APC tested the 667 and 600MHz models of the Cyrix III. A 650MHz model is also available and a 700MHz version is due for release early this year. By the end of the year, the company is planning to release an 800MHz version, and a 1GHz release is pencilled in for early 2002.

Despite the Cyrix branding, the processor uses elements of the Centaur technology that Via acquired from IDT in 1999. The chip features the same 370-pin socket as Intel's budget Celeron line, but has been designed to work with some older motherboard designs, so it can be used in ultra-cheap systems. The processor has a 128K 1evel 1 cache and 100/133MHz frontside bus, and is built using a 0.18-micron manufacturing process.

Benchmark results
Product	667MHz Cyrix III	600MHz Cyrix III
Business Graphics WinMark 99	182.7	172.7
High-End Graphics WinMark 99	468.3	448.3
Business Disk WinMark 99	1,973.30	2,103.30
High-End Disk WinMark 99	3,913	3,863
CPUmark 99	24	22.2
FPU WinMark 99	1,006	996
Business Winstone 99	21.9	20.3
Expendable timedemo (lowest fps)	14	11
Expendable timedemo (average fps)	25.5	22.4
SYSmark2000	60	55

Benchmark scores for the processor in APC Lab tests were consistent with Cyrix's market position. They were acceptable considering the speed rating and onboard cache, but hardly outstanding when compared to the recent crop of 1GHz (and faster) chips. That said, some recent releases such as the Pentium 4 have failed to live up to expectations.

Compared with the performance AMD has managed to squeeze out of the Duron, the results for the Cyrix III were a little disappointing. Benchmark scores in both raw processor utilisation and real-world applications were well below the 700MHz Duron tested by First Take in September last year. For instance, the 667MHz Cyrix III scored a CPUmark 99 result of 24, compared to the Duron's 59.9 on a similarly configured system. As expected, the performance of the 600MHz was weaker than the 667MHz model, but it scored better in the disk benchmarking tests.

Ongoing price pressures on chip manufacturers and computer distributors mean that Via may face an uphill battle in establishing market share. Even big brand PC manufacturers are being forced to slash prices, so Via's chances of finding a new niche are slim. Nonetheless, if you're after a no-frills, budget processor, the Cyrix III is a reasonable alternative. If you're power hungry, you should look elsewhere.

Product	667MHz Cyrix III	600MHz Cyrix III
Contact	Protac	Protac
Phone	(02) 9637 8999	(02) 9637 8999
Online	www.cyrix.com	www.cyrix.com
Price	$199	$164