Similarly to how AMD chose to demonstrate their K6-2 CPU at E3, the behind the scenes look at the K6-3 "Sharptooth" CPU was done as a head to head PC comparo versus a P2-450 equipped machine.

The K6-3 for those unfamiliar with the chip takes a full bore K6-2 CPU and throws 256K of full-speed L2 cache onto the die, thereby allowing the cache to run at the CPU's core speed. Needless to say the K6-3 offers a large performance jump over the K6-2, under almost any circumstance.

To illustrate the K6-3's performance, AMD led Sharky Extreme, Anand from Anandtech and the President of ACER Labs (plus his entourage of "yes" men) into a small room that included two identically outfitted PCs with one exception: The first had an AMD K6-3 400 CPU while the second held an Intel Pentium 2-450.

After explaining a few of the technical differences about the K6-3 versus the Pentium 2, one of AMD's tech staff fired up a specially created version of Ziff Davis' Winstone and proceeded to start both of the machines in sync.

The intent was to show how the AMD machine would complete the test run first, while the higher MHz P2-450 would take longer. In reality the test looked a little stacked right from the start as the Intel machine took about 7 to 8 seconds longer to load the app than the AMD machine, giving the K6-3 a little bit of help. After 3:15 the AMD machine completed the test suite, while the Intel machine came in approximately 15 seconds later at 3:30. Anand and I grumbled to each other that the test was skewed, but still agreed that the 400MHz K6-3 had held its own pretty well against the P2-450.

After the Winstone testing, the AMD staff showed a technology example of a K6-3 300 in a mobile version specifically for laptop applications. The mobile version was intriguing, although AMD admitted under our questioning that the K6-3 did eat more energy and produce more heat than a similar mobile Pentium 2. (About 10% more for each for all those wondering about the specifics.)

AMD wouldn't disclose pricing on the K6-3 400, but Sharky Extreme found an exec who would talk if it was "off the record". So to everyone reading this next part, this is all off the record ok? Don't tell anybody, it's just between us…

The K6-3 400 will most likely debut in the 400MHz variant we saw, with a 450MHz model coming 30 days later. Initial pricing on the 400 will be between $300 to $330 in 10K blocks, making the K6-3 a pretty good bargain. As for the date of release, January seems to be a lock for low volume, with February seeing full ramp up to the big production numbers.

The K6-3 finally gives AMD an equivalent alternative to Intel's high end Pentium 2 models, something that they've been dreaming about for years. In our minds, and in our testing, the K6-2 line is nice but not an equal to the same speed Intel offerings. 3DNow! support evens the gap somewhat, but without it the K6-2s are lightweights. The K6-3 on the other hand is a darn powerful part with or without 3DNow! although its FPU is still lacking when compared to a Pentium 2's directly.

The best part of all is that the K6-3 will allow a current Super7 owner to be able to just drop in the new part without the headache of any hardware upgrades. That's good news as many were doubting that this could be done without yet another "version" of all the Super7 mainboard AGPsets.