AMD CPUs: From The K5-75 To The Athlon XP 3000+
K5-75 To K5-166: March 1996 To January 1997
AMD introduced the K5 to compete with Intel's classic Pentium. This CPU was shipped with speeds of between 75 MHz and 116 MHz. The PR 75 (75 MHz), PR 90 (90 MHz) and PR 100 (100 MHz) were manufactured with 0.5 micron and the PR 133 (100 MHz) and PR 166 (116 MHz) versions in 0.35 micron process technology, the processor had 32 kB L1 cache, and the L2 cache was integrated on the motherboard. Maximum thermal dissipation was between 11.6 W and 16 W. The CPUs were designed for use on Socket 7 boards.
K6-166 To K6-300: April 1997 To April 1998
Compared with its predecessor, the AMD K5, this Intel Pentium competitor boasted an increase in clock speed from 66 MHz to 100 MHz. The 0.35 micron process was retained, and the number of transistors increased from 4.3 million on the K-5 to 8.8 million on the K-6. The CPUs were designed for use on Socket 7 boards.
K6-2/233 To K6-2/550: May 1998 To February 2000
The successor to the classic AMD K-6 was the K6-2, fitted with 3DNow! instruction set extensions. These provided extra performance with a number of 3D games in combination with specially written drivers. Compared with that of the K-6, the L1 cache was doubled to 64 kB, although the slower L2 cache remained on the motherboard. The number of transistors was now 9.3 million, and AMD moved to 0.25 micron process technology.
Our system with the AMD K6-2/500.
