Review of PowerLeap Adapter Part 4

Review of PowerLeap Adapter

The PowerLeap Adapter  What is a PowerLeap adapter? Packard Bell upgrades PowerLeap advantages What do you get? Installation Need help or have questions?	Part 1	Adapter PL-PRO/MMX Plus!
PowerLeap with an Intel 233 MHz MMX Intel processors Performance increase	Part 2
PowerLeap with an AMD K6-2 300 MHz AMD processors Performance increase	Part 3
PL-PRO/MMX Plus! What is a PowerLeap Plus! adapter? New features of the Plus! Overclocking with a PL-PRO/MMX Plus!	Part 4
PL-K6-III What is the PL-K6-III? Evolution in performance using PowerLeap adapters	Part 5
Related Reviews and Articles 400 MHz AMD K6-2 Vs. AMD K6-III -  Is the AMD K6-III faster then a AMD K6-2, find out. The AMD K6-III A Solution for Computers without L2 cache - An advantage of the K6-III My video performance increase - PowerLeap helped to increase the performance of my video card. My BIOS upgrade - This BIOS upgrade made it possible for me to use non-Intel processors.
Visit the PowerLeap Web Site for more information

 The PowerLeap Plus! adapter is the newest version of the PL-PRO/MMX.  Here is a picture of both the regular and the Plus! adapter.
 
 

Photo's curtsey of  PowerLeap, later revisions may vary.

PL-PRO/MMX	PL-PRO/MMX Plus!

As you can see, both are similar in design and function, however the PL-PRO/MMX Plus! has several new features which are a great improvement over the PL-PRO/MMX.  The most notable is the jumpers that control the voltages.

To sum it up, the PL-PRO/MMX Plus! has 4 new features that stand out; there may be more that I have missed, but it is these 4 that make the PL-PRO/MMX Plus! a great product in my mind.  These new features are:

1)  Well, let me talk about the best improvement first, the change in the jumper locations.  In the PL-PRO/MMX, the voltages were changed with a series of  dip switches located below the CPU.  This location meant that every time you wanted to change a jumper you needed to take the whole PL-PRO/MMX apart to get to the dip switches.  This was not a big problem, since most users will never have to take their PL-PRO/MMX apart, however for those of us who want to try and overclock a CPU it made things difficult.  In fact, I never even tried to overclock my PL-PRO/MMX because of this.

Now the PL-PRO/MMX Plus! is so much nicer, the voltages are controlled by the JP1 and JP2 jumpers; these are easily accessible without having to take anything apart.  In fact, if you have enough room in your case you may not even have to remove the PL-PRO/MMX Plus! in order to change a jumper.  I was able to overclock my AMD K6-2 very easily by changing one jumper, without even having to remove the PL-PRO/MMX Plus! from the ziff socket.

This is a major improvement over the PL-PRO/MMX, as it was one of the most common complaints about the PL-PRO/MMX.  I thank PowerLeap for listening to its customers.

So what else does the PL-PRO/MMX Plus! have that is different from the PL-PRO/MMX?

2)  The PL-PRO/MMX Plus! has an automatic overheat handler.  The way it works is, if the CPU temperature goes high enough (such as would happen if the fan were to stop working), the PL-Pro/MMX Plus! senses it and slows down the CPU to about half  its original speed.  This reduces heat and allows the system to continue running.  When the temperature goes down far enough, the sensor restores the CPU speed to normal again, and if the temp gets too hot it will alert you.

This new feature is accomplished through the new control panel, which detects the CPU slow-down (not the heat, actually),  that has important features designed just for the PL-PRO/MMX Plus!   This important feature helps protect your investment, especially if you are overclocking your CPU.   You can set the PL-PRO/MMX Plus! to alert you of high temperatures in one of the following ways:

• Play a wave file - This can be any wave file you select; it comes with one.
• Display a message -  This is simply a window that pops up over whatever application you are using in order to alert you of  high temperature on your CPU.
• Make a phone call -  Yes, it even lets your computer dial a number.  I have not used or tested this option, but it is interesting.
• Activate Rain -  This is a program that cools the CPU through a software instructions set in the CPU, basically it allows the CPU to rest when it is not in use, allowing the CPU to run cool.
• Run a program -  This can be anything, the default is the shutdown.exe file so your computer will shut off.

3)  PowerLeap has also CPU Cooling Software as I mentioned above; Rain is a neat utility that helps keep your CPU cool. This can be set to run all the time or it can be set to run only when the CPU gets hot.

4) Finally, it's optimized for the forthcoming K6-3.  The K6-3 will be coming out in Q498.  This chip will be a K6-2 with a 256k L2 cache right on the CPU, allowing the L2 cache to transfer the data at the the systems full clock speed.

The K6-3 will also be valuable for those of us who have Packard Bell systems without L2 cache; this additional L2 cache should be able to deliver performance increases of 40%.  We will have to wait and see if the AMD K6-3 delivers all that is promised.
 

So what does all this mean?  The bottom line is PowerLeap has put together an excellent product for us to not only upgrade our system to the latest technology, but we are also supplied an excellent product for overclocking.  The combination of easily accessible jumpers, heat sensor, and CPU cooling software make it ideal to safely try overclocking our CPU's.

I am running a AMD K6-2 300 at 331 MHz with absolutely no problems.  I also tried to get 266 MHz out of my 300 MHz chip, but my system would not boot.  If you are interested you can see my benchmark results on my AMD K6-2 page.