The New VIA Cyrix III: The Worlds First 0.15 Micron x86 CPU

Anaylizing Performance: Linpack

It seems that on top of the Cyrix III's crippled FPU, first noticed when in Quake III Arena, the Samuel2 based Cyrix III also suffers from very poor cache performance.

As Linpack shows, the access to cache memory is nearly the same speed as the access to the system memory, meaning that the processor's on-die cache is doing almost nothing for performance. For comparison, take a look at the performance of the Duron processor which holds, on paper at least, the identical cache layout and design. The Duron performs much faster when accessing memory from the cache, while the Cyrix III is left in the dust.

We can not determine what this is due to simply because we do not have enough information on the processor's architecture. What we do know, however, is that it is this poor cache performance that is most likely limiting the speed of the Samuel2 based Cyrix III in every situation.