K6-2's FP increases 4 folds over Pentium II & K6. VIA, ALI's chipsets support K6-2 Super Socket7.
une 01, 1998, TechWeb News
AMD offering 3D-enhanced K6
By Mark Hachman
Silicon Valley - Stung by criticism that its microprocessors fail to
deliver sufficient multimedia performance, Advanced Micro Devices
Inc. has answered with a 3D-enhanced version of its K6 microprocessor.
The K6-2, once known as the K6 3D, is an enhanced 0.25-micron version of the company's
flagship K6 microprocessor plus 3DNow!, AMD's proprietary instructions for accelerating
lighting and geometry calculations in games.
AMD executives announced the chip last week at Electronic Entertainment Expo in Atlanta,
which has rapidly evolved into the Comdex of the video-game and 3D-chip industry. The
announcement was backed by IBM Corp. and a host of second- and third-tier OEMs that
will use the new chip.
The K6-2 provides three basic enhancements to the K6 architecture, said Dana Krelle, vice
president of marketing at AMD, Sunnyvale, Calif.: the 3DNow! instructions, a 100-MHz
system bus, and an improved means of processing floating-point and MMX instructions.
The announcement also could renew the debate on how graphics are processed in a PC.
Using AMD's approach, the microprocessor would calculate geometry and lighting in
software. A different approach, proposed by Fujitsu Microelectronics Inc. this week, would
ask buyers to purchase a dedicated geometry chip from FMI.
Furthermore, AMD has courted popular software developers Rage Software and Epic
Megagames, persuading them to write K6-2-specific code, perpetuating the practice made
famous by chip supplier 3Dfx Interactive Inc.
Despite a general malaise in the market for 3D chips, healthy demand for games using
3Dfx's Glide helped the company earn $7.5 million in the first quarter on revenue of $50
million, which were double that posted in the previous quarter.
The 3DNow! instructions are also included in Microsoft Corp.'s DirectX 6.0 software API,
the OpenGL API, as well as Glide, Krelle said, leaving the graphics chip to process the
remaining set-up and rasterization functions.
The K6-2 processors are shipping in volume at 266, 300, and 333 MHz, to be followed by a
350-MHz version in the third quarter and a 400-MHz version in the fourth. Prices for the
266-, 300-, and 333-MHz parts are $185, $281, and $369, respectively, in 1,000s. |
