VIA C3

[Damian Gerow]

Thus spake Gerrit K?hn (gerrit at pmp.uni-hannover.de) [15/06/03 10:40]:
> > CPU: VIA/IDT Unknown (998.70-MHz 686-class CPU)
> >   Origin = "CentaurHauls"  Id = 0x689  Stepping = 9
> >   Features=0x803035<FPU,DE,TSC,MSR,MTRR,PGE,MMX>
> 
> This one doesn't seem to support SSE, though I wonder why there is
> this "unknown". My C3 here is an Ezra and is identified as "Samuel2"
> with id=067a.

I have an Ezra or an Ezra-T core (the only difference is Tualatin <sp>
compatibility), and it produces an Unknown.

If you have a 'Samuel2' core, then you have a Samuel2 core.  It's neither
Ezra nor Ezra-T -- those two are the successors to Samuel2.

> However, if you have a C3 without SSE, it's basically a K6 with MMX
> and 3dNow. So I'm using "CPUTYPE=k6-3" in /etc/make.conf. Up to now
> this has been working fine for me.

I've been using CPUTYPE=i586/mmx.  That's been working for me as well -- I'd
be interested to see which is more optimized.

Does your chip understand CMOV?  GCC presumes that a 686-class processor has
CMOV, and while the C3 /is/ a 686-class processor, it doesn't do CMOV.  But
I heard a rumor that the Samuel2 core /does/ do CMOV...