The new Pentium III may seem more flashy than the AMD K6-3, but don't be
fooled by AMD's slower clock speeds.  I believe that AMD is announcing either
a K6-3 or K7 processor by the end of the year that either is at 600 Mhz or
above.  Even though Intel will probably manage this also and even exceed this
clock speed, you also have to consider the cache for the 2 processors. I
think the AMD K6-3 and K7 will have on-die L2 cache which runs at the speed
of the processor core.  So basically, a 450 Mhz AMD K6-3 will have 256 KB of
on die cache that will run at 450 Mhz.  In case you don't know, this is an
improvement of the current Cache for the AMD K6-2 which had 512 KB of L2
Cache that is located on the motherboard and runs at the bus speed (anywhere
from 66 to 100 Mhz {and if you overclock that from 100 to 133 Mhz you may
risk damaging your motherboard}).  The loss is in the amount of L2 cache,
which some people might find annoying, while some might consider it a small
setback.  The reason the on-die L2 cache is better is because the pentium II
and III currently run at half of the processor speed.  So, even the Pentium
II 500 will have slower L2 cache by 200 Mhz!  However, if the size of the L2
cache really matters, the Pentium II and III's still have more faster L2
cache than anyone else on the market.  That is what I think has even kept AMD
so far back in the market because the cache is way slow.  I think Intel has
even realized the new developments at AMD because their mobile processors are
just like that now at 300 333 and 366 Mhz.  Even the new Celerons I believe
have on die L2 cache, but only 128 KB of it.  In fact, Intel is starting to
develop Celerons that are better that the Pentium II's, for a lot less.  They
have faster cache, and some 300 Mhz Celerons were released with a core that
is essentially used in the pentium II 450 Mhz.  So it could be way
overclocked.  The only way Intel can keep their premium pentium II processors
ahead is by making the bus speed for all Celerons 66 Mhz tops, and it's even
locked at that speed.  Also, the really low amount of L2 cache steers many
people with the money away.  But if you don't have money tree in your back
yard, the Celeron is the easy hands-down choice for many people.  Also, the
pentium II is still going through a court battle over privacy because of an
Internet feature that lets websites know who you are basically.  Intel
claimed that they disabled the feature and that it could be turned on if
desired by the user.  But some still speculate that that isn't enough.  So
either wait for the court battle to be over and but a pentium II, wait for
AMD to get out the faster processor, or go but whichever one you think is the
best for you right now from the info I have given you.  All of you that may
know different stats and mine are off, please correct me, my sources may not
be perfect.  In fact, my info about the AMD K6-3 may be what is really
featured on the K7, but if I remember correctly, I'm right on most of my
info.  Please correct me if you can.  Hope this helps.  Sorry for the long
letter, but I know how important it is for a lot of people to decide which
CPU is best for them.

Matthew Brown

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