AMD K6-3 450 MHz System by Leonard "Viking1" Hjalmarson
	Not long ago we interviewed AMD on their coming K7 CPU. By far the most powerful AMD silicon ever released, this new CPU will compete directly with Intel's PIII. We hope to test a K7 (Athlon) system in July. AMD's current king of the skies is the third iteration of their K6 series, the K6-3, with their enhanced 3dNOW instruction set. We never tested a K6-2 based system, and were content to wait for the strongest and final iteration of the K6 series, the K6-3, which adds on chip cache to the K6 CPU. With 256K of full core speed on-die level 2 cache (compared to 128K in the Intel Celeron), the K6-3 otherwise shares the K6-2 core. Like the Celeron A compared to the original Celeron, the K6-3 benefits greatly by the addition of the on-die level 2 cache. Also like the CeleronA, that cache operates at full clock speed, a searing 450MHz in this case. Considering that the K6-2s level 2 cache bumped along at 100MHz, this CPU is clearly out gunning the previous model. K6-3: Compatibility and 3dNOW Compatibility is an issue of the past with the K6-3. Moving from the original K6 to the K6-2 could be problematic. But with this CPU a Super7 system only requires a BIOS flash to support the K6-3's CXT core. "CXT" is technospeak for the K6-2 and K6-3s write-combining ability, a feature that adds a couple more percentage points in performance in some applications. Although the cache implementation is a significant change, there are no new instructions in this CPU. The floating point unit on the K6-3 is identical to that of the K6-2, with the same 3dNOW instructions. That instruction set is critical to attain the full performance of this CPU, but even without 3dNOW support in a particular simulation the K6-3 is a strong performer. Where 3dNOW support is in place the K6-3 will pass the performance of the same clock speed Pentium II by anywhere from 20 to 40 percent! Click to continue		Test System: AMD K6-3 450Mhz. 128 MB PCI 100 Diamond Monstersound MX300 Diamond Monster Fusion 16 MB Quantum Fireball Plus KA Optiquest V115 21" display Promise Ultra 66 UDMA Controller HiVal TrueX 40x CD Logitech Wingman Force MS Sound System 80 Comparison System: PII 400 MHz 128 MB PCI 100 Diamond Monster Fusion 16 MB Diamond Monstersound MX300 Quantum Viking II Ultra II 4.5 Toshiba 40x SCSI Logitech Wingman Force MS Sound System 80 Driver versions: DirectX 6.1 and WIN98 Logitech: Wingman 3.2 Diamond Viper 770: 4.02 Diamond MX300: Aureal 2.08 Go to Part Two: Benchmarks
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