Ship Date:
Late August (Athlon 600)
Now (P3-600)

Now that Sharky Extreme has reviewed the new Intel Pentium III 600, AMD Athlon 600 and Athlon 650 CPUs, our natural inclination is to piece together our thoughts regarding the three towards a few general recommendations.

But instead of the traditionally inane technology breakdowns, ramblings about architectural differences, and analysis of the black and white on these three CPUs, we're going to instead try to bring readers along with us as we get a feel for each part and its capabilities.

The bottom line here is this: When given a specific set of circumstances and goals, which CPU choice will best deliver upon those particular needs?

Join us now as we explore the options both new system buyers and upgraders have thanks to the Athlon CPUs line's debut over the next few weeks.

When any discussions regarding the choice between the Pentium III and Athlon are begun by educated consumers, the main similarities and differences raised will likely revolve around the following:

• 100MHz SDRAM Operation
• 512K of level two cache operating at ½ of CPU's core speed.
• AGP 2X support
• PCI 2.2 support

• Athlon's L1 cache equals 128KB while P3's is limited to 32KB.
• Intel's current 440BX chipset does not natively support UDMA/66, while the Athlon's does.