AMD K6-2

Chomper
Chomper -XT

The K6 -2 is a x86 microprocessor from AMD, which was prepared with clock speeds 233-570 MHz. He has a 64 KiB large level 1 cache (32 per KiB for data and instructions ), 2.2 volt power supply is required and has been produced using a 0.25 micron process. It has 9.3 million transistors and is used as a connection to the motherboard socket 7 or Super Socket 7 The K6- 2 is a further development of the K6.

2.1 K6- 3D ( Chomper )
2.2 K6- 3D ( Chomper -XT )

The K6- 2 and its competitors

The K6- 2 was positioned as a competitor to the slightly older and much more expensive Intel Pentium II. The performance of the two CPUs is similar: while the K6 -2 in general tasks running faster, the Intel CPU is clearly superior at floating point calculations. The K6- 2 was a very successful CPU that AMD gave the reputation and financial stability for the introduction of the Athlon.

The K6 -2 is the first CPU with a floating-point SIMD instruction set ( 3DNow ), which can significantly improve the performance of 3D applications in the theory. AMD had this technology already, as Intel succeeded for several months on the market with the similar, but more complicated Isse instruction set.

Almost all K6-2 are designed to operate at 100 MHz FSB and thus for Super Socket 7 motherboards, which brought a significant improvement in system performance at the time. At the beginning of the K6-2 line of K6-2/300 was the best-selling variant. He brought AMD quickly an excellent reputation in the market, and competed fiercely with Intel's Celeron 300A. It has a smaller but faster L2 cache and a more powerful floating point unit; The K6 -2 provides a faster main memory access (thanks to Super Socket 7 ) and 3DNow instruction extensions. Both processors sold well and were loyal buyers to bind to ( at that time the fastest Pentium II was slightly faster than these two processors, the but at a much higher price ).

AMD later built a number of faster K6-2, wherein the variants 350, 400, 450 and 500 MHz have been most successful. At the time of the 450 - and 500 - MHz models newer and faster chips had already taken over the high- performance market, while the K6 -2 is still competing with the Celerons, but only in the class of low-cost CPUs. The fast 100 MHz front side bus allowed the K6- 2 long time to keep up with the much higher clocked competition to some extent.

Special popularity among overclockers and Aufrüstwilligen enjoyed the versions with the Chomper XT core. These are to overclock quite well in general and for older motherboards that do not speak multipliers over 3.5 ×, the fact turns out to be favorable that the Chomper XT interprets a set 2 × multiplier than 6 ×. There are also specialized CPU adapter socket, adjust the voltage and multiplier, so that for example a K6-2/400 in Pentium -1 motherboards with Socket 7 running at 66 MHz FSB and the multiplier 6. On the front of the CPU is a number in the lower left corner of the ceramic package. Processors with Chomper XT core carry there the number 26351, with Chomper core processors, the number 26050th

The little-known K6 -2 is not really a K6- 2 but an enhanced version of the AMD K6- III for laptops.

The CPUs of AMD K6- 2 series with a speed of 350 MHz or more are not compatible without a patch with Windows 95 because Windows 95 drivers IOS.VXD implemented a time loop to due to the high speed of the processor is processed quickly and then a division by zero performs. The patch was developed by Microsoft and AMD and was available on the website at AMD. To execute the patch, the CPU must be practically most 300 MHz, clocked at 350 MHz. After the patch version, the CPU can be clocked up again to its nominal clock, and so the full power be used.

Performance

In retrospect, the K6 and its derivatives in terms of performance were a double-edged sword for AMD. Due to its slow (because running without pipeline ) floating point unit of the K6 against its direct competitor, the Intel processors Pentium MMX and Pentium II, for the FPU - intensive applications such as the then-emerging 3D games has no chance. On top of that, the Pentium II on fast L2 cache was able to draw directly on the processor module, whereas the processors of the K6 and K6- 2 series used as before the L2 cache of the ( super) Socket 7 motherboards. This bandwidth disadvantage made to create the AMD CPUs, only the K6- III and the mobile variants K6 -2 and K6- III ran at the end of the K6- era thanks to the The integrated Level 2 cache in top form. These clearly show the advantages of the K6 architecture: A fast integer unit with a very short pipeline, an intelligent branch prediction unit and a very large for its time translation lookaside buffer gave it a high efficiency ( instructions per cycle). In a test against the successor - K7 architecture at the same clock speed of the K6 -2 was the winner in many integer -heavy benchmarks. However, while the only six-stage integer pipeline made the K6 design largely independent of software optimizations, limited this low-latency design on the other hand significantly the maximum clock frequency: The K6 architecture reached at 570 MHz maximum, however, the K7 successor design scaled over the years to well over 2 GHz.

Model data

K6- 3D ( Chomper )

CPUID: Family 5 Model 8 Stepping 0
L1 - Cache: 32 32 KiB ( Data Instructions )
MMX, 3DNow
Super Socket 7 with 66 and 100 MHz
Operation voltage ( Vcore ): 2.2 to 2.4 V
Release Date: May 28, 1998
Manufacturing Technology: 0.25 micron
The size: 81 mm ² at 9.3 million transistors
Clock rates (power ): 233 MHz ( 13.50 W)
266 MHz [ 28 May 1998 ] ( 14.70 W)
300 MHz [ 28 May 1998 ] ( 17.20 W)
333 MHz [ 28 May 1998 ] ( 19.00 W)
350 MHz [ 27 August 1998 ] ( 19.95 W)

K6- 3D ( Chomper -XT )

Has improved the CPU core of the K6 -III, but without the level-2 cache.

CPUID: Family 5 Model 8 Stepping 12
L1 - Cache: 32 32 KiB ( Data Instructions )
MMX, 3DNow
Super Socket 7 with 66, 95, 97 and 100 MHz
Operation voltage ( Vcore ): 2.2 to 2.4 V
Release Date: November 16, 1998
Manufacturing Technology: 0.25 micron
The size: 81 mm ² at 9.3 million transistors
Clock rates (power ): 266 MHz
300 MHz
333 MHz
350 MHz
366 MHz [ 16 November 1998 ] ( 20.80 W)
380 MHz [ 16 November 1998 ] ( 21.60 W)
400 MHz [ 16 November 1998 ] ( 16.90 to 22.70 W)
450 MHz [ 26 February 1999 ] ( 18.80 to 28.40 W)
475 MHz [ 5 April 1999 ] ( 19.80 to 29.60 W)
500 MHz [ 30, August 1999 ] ( 20.75 W)
533 MHz [ 29 November 1999 ] ( 20.75 W)
550 MHz [ 22 February 2000 ] ( 25.00 W)

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