When Intel launched he new Celeron ( Mendicino: 300A and 333 ), AMD rabid fans thought, it was the end of the k6-2 processor. However, even with its 128k of level 2 cache running at full processor speed, the Mendicino still couldn't beat AMD's K6-2! In some areas though it was quite unfortunate that the Mendicino actually beat the hell out the K6-2( happy Intel fans?)! However, it is very interesting to point out that among the benchmarks that the Mendicino actually won( that is...versus the k6-2 ) was when it was overclocked to about 1.5x its normal speed!( please refer to the reviews section for more info on the mendicino and k6-2 ) It's not that I discourage overclocking, but we must all realize that the one who wrote this splendid article failed to match up an overclocked K6-2 to an overclocked Mendicino.... Or maybe he thought he should've, but did not do it anyway , because of very obvious reasons! Hmmm.......
Hmm.. this article isn't about the Mendicino & K6-2, so let's stop talking about those two hehhehehehe....
Lets go to AMD next processor, that will surely make the Celeron Mendicino lag behind in performance.... The name of this processor is K6-3. Codenamed Sharptooth by AMD, this Celeron killer is actually ready to be manufactured but AMD won't release it probably until the first quarter of 1999.. Why? Because AMD will release ( or may have already been released, at the time of publication of this article ) the AMD K6-2 380 & 400 processors.. (Note: this chips not only support a higher clock speed but will come with a new core, perhaps a new FPU? ) The K6-3 may be AMD's last processor that will be priced 25% lower than similarly clocked Intel chips.. Why? Because Intel's Katmai( that's Intel's next chip to be released on the first quarter of 1999 ) will definitely be no match against AMD's K7( see Reviews ). And the K7 maybe priced higher or the same against the Intel chips.
Some of the k6-3's features :
- 3Dnow! Support
- Clock speeds ranging from 350 to 500 Megahertz
- 21.3 Million transistors ( compared to K6-2's 9.3 million and PII's 7.5 Million )
- 256k of level 2 cache running at full processor speed!
- Level 3 motherboard cache
- Will fit into any Super7 motherboard
Hmm... with all these features the k6-3 will be really PII killer instead of being the Celeron Mendicino killer... It is very interesting to note that the Mendicino killer came out before the Mendicino did.. Guess what it is? Yes, you are right its the K6-2. The K6-2 beats the Mendicino, even though it was manufactured earlier. Again please refer to the Reviews section for a more detailed comparison between the two.
The Sharptooth will be very upgrade friendly to those of you who already own a Super7 motherboard. Plus its level 2 cache will run at full processor speeds much like the high end processors ( PII-Xeon and PPro ). Though the effects of having a level 3 cache are yet to be discovered by Chips & Bits and a few other computer wizards , it would be very nice to see more and more of those cache levels. Take note that the Cpu's level 1 cache is responsible for the instructions of the processor and the level 2 cache controls the memory. Our sources indicate that the level 3 cache of the K6-3 will still be responsible for the memory and the 256K level 2 cache will act more like a huge level 1 cache. Please take note that this is unconfirmed.
One last thing that calls the attention of Chips & Bits, is the 3DNow! support. For those of you who don't know what it is....
It is a set of 21 instructions that help out the floating point performance of the processor by taking the most used floating point operations and processing it much faster than another processor, say like the Pentium 2. It can perfrom upto 4 FPU instructions per clock cycle. Its only downside however, is that it requires the software ( mostly games ) to be compatible with it, otherwise no optimizations will take place.( Note : A whole lotta games include 3DNow! support plus it is supported by Microsoft's very own Directx 6)
