Kingston TurboChip 200 and Hypertec HyperRace MxPro

Memory manufacturers Kingston and Hypertec have both seen an opportunity to sell Pentium upgrade products to users who simply want a performance boost, but are not sure their machine will cope — and who don’t want to pay Intel OverDrive prices. They have each developed their own special upgrade pack, based on Pentium-compatible, MMX-enabled chipsets. Kingston has taken the clock-tripled AMD K6 chip with 64K LI cache and a 0.35-micron core and MMX instructions, and plugged it into an auto-voltagesensing base.
Hypertec has opted for the less well known but very keenly priced IDT WinChip C6/180 CPU, with 64K LI cache and MMX compatibility, mounted on a straight plug-in card. This draws power for its cooling fan from the system board itself. Kingston’s bigger heat sink and cooling fan assembly is powered by a slave lead from existing power supply leads. Both kits come bundled in a box with a speed check utility on floppy, a full set of instructions, and, of course, a sticker for the outside of the upgraded machine. Both are touted as the instant upgrade answer, and in most cases, they both do the job.
Kingston says any Socket 5 (320-pin) or Socket 7 (321-pin) Z1F housing will take its TurboChip 200 after the existing P75, P90 or P100 has been removed, and if it doesn’t run, offers a simple no-work, no-pay offer. This is a good idea, as the variations in Pentium and Pentium-class chipset and BIOS vary enormously. The kit comes with a jeweller’s screwdriver to help prise the heat sink off the original CPU, and an instruction booklet. Fitting is extremely simple. Remove the original CPU, insert the Tur-boChip/voltage board/fan assembly, plug in the cooling fan lead then switch the system back on. No jumpers, BIOS setup or DIP switch adjustments are needed at all. If the lights come on, it works. If not, Kingston will give you your money back.
Hypertec has taken a different route and has supplied its HyperRace MxPro with a preinstallation test utility on disk. This interrogates the computer’s BIOS to check if the new CPU will be compatible. If it isn’t, the install routine includes an automatic flash upgrade to bring the BIOS up-to-date. This approach should ensure a high level of compatibility with Intelequipped systems, but may not sort out compatibility
issues with all third-party chips and motherboards. The HyperRace MxPro installation floppy then makes a precautionary backup copy of the original BIOS and CMOS settings, tests the speed of the system, and asks you to insert the new chip. Unlike the Kingston, it may recommend a change of voltage, bus speed and multiplier ratio to suit the 60MHz/3:l requirements of the chip. This can mean some delicate work on motherboard jumpers and switches (not known for their user-friendliness), and may possibly daunt the less technically aware. But in terms of knowing what is going on — and getting the most out of any given motherboard — the Hypertec installation is much more informative than Kingston’s simple plug-and-go approach.
Both systems were tested on a Digital Venturis 5700 system originally running a Pentium 100, with 256K cache and 48M of RAM. Neither upgrade posed any problem at all, and the average chip installation time was around a minute once the case was open. Before the upgrades were installed, WinBench CPUMark32 was run on the original machine, along with a Dhrystone routine under DOS. The original readings were a CPUMark32 of 210 and 63,451 Dhrystones.
The Kingston TurboChip 200 was installed first, and produced 335 on the CPUMark32 scale and a 162,540 Dhrystones reading. This was quite a dramatic jump, and made for notably faster program loading and running. When we replaced the Kingston upgrade with the Hypertec HyperRace MxPro, the set-up utility supplied told us the voltage, clock speed and bus multiplier would need to be changed to suit the 180MHz chip. This took a while to do, juggling jumpers with long-nosed pliers. Eventually, however, the MxPro gave a CPUMark32 of 309 and 106,344 Dhry-stones. Again, this was a very worthwhile increase, although not quite as fast as the Kingston.
Both these upgrades obviously bring some very worthwhile increases in pure CPU grunt, and in particular the HyperRace offers excellent value for money — especially compared to an Intel OverDrive. The MxPro also offers notably lower power consumption and heat generation, opening up the possibility of (strictly unsupported) overclocking with potentially less heat-induced problems. The Kingston is a simpler fix, has a faster, more sophisticated chip with better FPU performance — probably not an issue for most upgrade situations — but costs more and doesn’t encourage the same performance tweaking.