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A couple of years back, Intel had completely dropped support for the Socket 7 platform starting from the release of the Pentium II and Celeron processors. At the time, CPU manufacturers such as AMD, Cyrix (before being purchased by VIA), IDT (the Centaur division also owned by VIA), IBM and Rise remained on the Socket 7 bandwagon as they knew it was costly for the consumer moving to a Slot 1 solution.
50% Rating: 
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Overclocking And Stability
As the AMD K6-3
line of CPUs are not multiplier locked, there is relatively a bit more you can
do with it compared to a Celeron. But there are trade offs. Though Celeron's are
clocked locked, the overclock ability (in terms of MHz) is a bit higher than its
AMD counterpart. However, with AMD though it is unlocked, you cannot soar as
high as one could with a Celeron CPU (with exception to the 500MHz and 533MHz
flavours) but your flexibility is certainly there.
| Clock
Speed |
Ratio |
Result |
| 412.5 |
75 x 5.5 |
Stable |
| 415 |
83 x 5 |
Stable |
| 427.5 |
95 x 4.5 |
Stable |
| 450 |
100 x 4.5 |
Stable |
| 456.5 |
83 x 5.5 |
Stable |
| 475 |
95 x 5 |
Failed |
The AMD K6-3 400 CPU that was used was successfully
clocked up to 450MHz with no stability problems. The benchmarks ran flawlessly
and the system did not hang at this speed. At just a mere 6.5 MHz more, I
started experience an occasional blue screen. As the bus speed at 456.5 was a
comfy 83 MHz, I can assume that the motherboard is not the culprit here. When I
tried to turn up the juice to 475MHz (95 x 4.5), the system refused to load the
operating system, even when I bumped up the voltage a bit.
Conclusions
The Redfox AGP ALi is not targeted for power hungry users.
If you are looking out for a load of features in a motherboard,
I would advise you to look somewhere else. The board is limited
in terms of features such as overclock ability. The best candidate for this board would most
probably be someone who is looking to build a system on a budget. Regular home and
office users looking for a stable Socket 7 platform are probably the ones would benefit most
from this board.
This board is certainly stable and works
without problems. As mentioned earlier in this article it is indeed a hot seller
here in India and my guess is that a lot of the customers are companies who need
computers to get basic jobs like invoicing, billing, inventory, etc. done.
Period... For them, AGP 4x and ATA/66 probably do not mean much to them. The 3
ISA slots on this board are probably more appealing to them than anyone as they
can still use their legacy ISA 1 MB VGA cards and older sound boards. And at a
cost of Rs. 3500, the price certainly says it all.
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