K6 III in use

The arrival of the K6 III has been one of the most eagerly awaited processor releases of recent monthes. AMD has become very good at generating a near level of hysteria for each and every one of its new designs. Well now it is here, what can we say?

Well the launch of the K6 III was something of a disappointment. It has been nearly two monthes since the chip was launched and supply reaching the UK has been very poor indeed. This has helped to keep prices high which is something of a minus against the K6 III. Expect this situation to change once supply is no longer an issue.

As regards performance the K6 III is very good indeed. It easily outperforms its K6-2 sibling and even manages to put Intel's Pentium III and celeron to shame for everyday functions. It's in the role as a games and multi-media processor does this chip show its achillies heel. That is of course its poor floating point performance. This is probably the one area of the K6 family which has shown the least improvement. What was acceptable against the Pentium MMX is no longer good enough against the Pentium II / III and Celeron processors and this is a serious mark against the AMD offering. We feel that this is a shame as the K6 III deserves to be the best processor on sale. We have to wait for the K7 to see this problem rectified.

The only other area of concern as regards the K6 III is in that Super Socket 7 is not the most reliable platform currently available. This obviously is not the fault of AMD but is does need to be bourn in mind when purchasing a K6 III system.

K6 III, the verdict

Well, AMD have produced a superb processor in the shape of the K6 III. This is a chip which does the K6 family proud. As to whether we can recommend this chip there are a few points we feel must be looked at. First, there is a limited supply and rather high prices which mean that it may be difficult to get hold of, and its doesn't offer enough of a performance advantage to warrant a price tag £100 over that of an Intel Celeron 433. Also users may want to take a good look at Super Socket 7 before buying.

Apart from that the K6 III is a very good processor indeed, but be careful as there are big changes afoot in the PC industry which may limit your machines future upgrade potential.

AMD K6-3® Processor, Technical Data

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Other AMD Processors at:

• AMD K5 page
• AMD K6 page
• AMD K6-2 page
• AMD K7 page