Ik zag op JC's News'n'Links page wat handige info over de AMD K6-3 en K7. De info is afkomstig van 't Yahoo AMD Stock message board. JC's reactie zie je vetgedrukt:
AMD is about to announce a K6-2/450. They will up the core voltage to 2.3 volts instead of 2.2 volts and with that small bump can easily yield 450MHz devices. This announcement will be coming any day now. The ASP on this processor will be over $200.This is very possible and somewhat scary. When AMD was nearing the end of their 0.35um process, they were up to 200MHz at 2.9v. To get to 233MHz, they upped to 3.2v with near-disastrous results. A jump from 2.2v to 2.3v wouldn't be dangerous (K6 core is said to be fine up to 2.4 and probably 2.5), but it is a sign that K6-3 won't get too high before its die shrink.
AMD is on target for a February introduction of the K6-3/400 processor with several major OEMs. The K6-3/400 has already been shown to outperform the PentiumII-450 by 8 - 12% depending on the benchmark. This processor will be initially targeted at the commercial market segment. And you know who the big players are in that segment don't you (Compaq, Dell, Gateway, IBM, Micron). AMD will probably launch K6-3 with at least 3 of these leading players in February. Since the commercial segment is less price sensitive, AMD's initial ASPs for the K6-3 will be in the $300 range (much higher than the current $100 ASP model).
I do like those prices. If they are true, they make sense. Higher than what an AMD customer is used to, but still lower than Intel's PII prices.
K7 is on track for an April/May release date. K7 has already been shown to significantly outperform the Katmai processor on recent benchmarks posted on Sharky's Extreme website. K7 will support multiprocessor designs and will be targeted at the server market which commands even higher margins than the commercial market. K7 will sell in the $500 range.
This is slightly incorrect. It was Hardware Extreme that showed the K7 trouncing a Katmai. That's Mr. Terry Kok (the drawer of my logo above) who deserves credit. Sharky was responsible for the second K6-3 benchmarkfest. That is, unless Sharky recently put up a K7 review that I missed. I might mention, about the K7/Katmai benchmarks, that I have been in contact with more than one AMD source, and they've both strongly implied that the K7 Terry's contact was using was an early model and the final model has some additional optimizations which may further improve performance. Anyway, the price range sounds right (Silvino Orozco, an AMD fellow, has stated that the K7 will be priced around Katmai's level, MHz for MHz.
