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--- blog:pentium_pc_tulip_166 [2023/01/15 12:35] – [Resources] john
+++ blog:pentium_pc_tulip_166 [2023/01/15 13:18] (current) – [Tulip Vision Line DT 5/166] john
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 ====== Tulip Vision Line DT 5/166 ======
+This is a fairly compact desktop-configuration system I bought in December 2022 from a seller on Ebay that deals in vintage PC equipment.
+The case was pretty dirty when it arrived, but a little bit of soap and water and a magic eraser and it came up looking lovely:
+{{:blog:pentium:img20221221130839.jpg?400|}} {{:blog:pentium:img20221221130827.jpg?400|}}
+Motherboard is a compact design with a shared ISA/PCI riser, and is based on the very common Intel Triton II chipset (i430VX) with lot of integrated peripherals (dual channel PCI IDE controller, Alliance ProMotion PCI VGA, AMD PCNet 10mbit ethernet):
+{{:blog:pentium:img20221220181828.jpg?400|}} {{:blog:pentium:img20221220175302.jpg?400|}}
+Apparently there are multiple revisions of this motherboard with some having dual-voltage processor support, some having S3 VGA and optional sound support. Mine unfortunately is an early model without any of those options.
 ==== Specification ====
@@ Line 18: / Line 29: @@
    * Video: Diamond Stealth 64 DRAM (2MB S3 Trio64) + Diamond Monster 3D (4MB Voodoo 1)
    * Audio: ESS Audiodrive 1868F + NEC/Yamaha DB60XG
+   * Storage: 3.5" Floppy Drive, Front bay mounted CF reader on primary IDE channel (Kingston Ultimate 266x 16GB)
 ==== Faults & Fixes ====
@@ Line 40: / Line 52: @@
 Unfortunately I've not been able to find a single reference manual for the Vision Line DT5/166. If you do find one, then be careful that there were several variations of the motherboard; at least 'early' and 'late' designs where early boards (such as mine) do not have the split-voltage support needed for Pentium MMX (or Cyrix 6x86L) processors, so you are stuck to non-MMX models (effectively a Pentium 200 being the best cpu you can fit).
 ==== Benchmarks ====
+^          ^                           ^ Configuration 1 ^
+|          |                           | Pentium 166MHz  |
+|          |                           | 2x32MB EDO      |
+|          |                           | PCI Diamond Stealth 64 DRAM (S3 Trio64)   |
+|Test      | Metric                    |                 |
+|Norton    | CPU Score                 | 525.4           |
+|Comptest  | CPU Cache throughput      | 636364 KB/sec   |
+|Comptest  | RAM throughput            | 70904 KB/sec    |
+|Comptest  | Extended RAM throughput   | 8902 KB/sec ??? |
+|Comptest  | Dhrystones                | 130933          |
+|Comptest  | KWhetstones               | 93333           |
+|Comptest  | MegaFLOPS                 | 8.2             |
+|Comptest  | Disk throughput           | 10862 KB/sec    |
+|Landmark  | CPU of emulated PC/AT     | 1729 MHz        |
+|Landmark  | FPU of emulated PC/AT     | 2753 MHz        |
+|Landmark  | Video                     | 23405           |
+|Speedsys  | CPU Performance           | 122.91          |
+|Speedsys  | L1 Cache                  | 308 MB/sec      |
+|Speedsys  | L2 Cache                  | 113 MB/sec      |
+|Speedsys  | RAM Throughput            | 77.5 MB/sec     |
+|Speedsys  | RAM Bandwidth             | 220 MB/sec      |
+|Wolfenstein 3D | FPS                  | 133.2 FPS       |
+|DOOM      | Low Detail                | 232.68 FPS      |
+|DOOM      | High Detail               | 70.73 FPS       |
+|Quake     | 320x240                   | 37.7 FPS        |
+|Quake     | Medium                    | 15.7 FPS        |
+|Quake     | 640x480                   | N/A             |
+|3D Bench  | 1.0c                      | 137.8 FPS       |
+|PC Player | Low Res                   | 40.2 FPS        |
+|PC Player | High Res                  | 13.6 FPS        |
+== Thoughts ==
+The Intel 430VX chipset is the 'poor cousin' of the 430HX and 430TX, but it still delivers solid performance. Non-accelerated Quake playback in low res is very acceptable and of course titles from the previous generation (i.e. DOOM) are as smooth as you could ever expect them to be. At the time these systems came out I was an owner of a Cyrix 6x86 P166+ - having seen the real Pentium 166 perform in Quake, I can see now why it caused the downfall of Cyrix!
+It's interesting to compare this system with the [[blog:pentium_pc_digipos_pro|Digipos Pro]], which is from approximately the same era, has the same CPU socket (socket 7) and takes the same generation of processors. The Digipos system has much better RAM throughput from it's Ali Aladdin chipset (with the same type of memory - 2x 32MB EDO), but the much lower clocked Pentium 166 of the Tulip is //significantly// faster than the Winchip 200 of the Digipos. The Intel chipset/PCI IDE controller is also far, far faster than the (almost ISA speed) IDE of the Digipos, leading to a much more responsive system. It will be interesting to see whether an Intel processor in the Digipos system can improve things.