I wanted a K6-2, but had just blown $400CAD on a K6-200 (just the CPU, not the whole system)...so no upgrade for me. K6-2/200 was definitely rare. Who would have wanted something that slow in 1998 anyway?
Maybe it would have been a good buy. You probably could have overclocked the hell out of it.

Anonymous Coward wrote on 2021-12-11, 01:32:

Who would have wanted something that slow in 1998 anyway?

I did because I needed to stick with a budget
Brand new a complete multimedia Pc $399 as spec’d even at the lowish speed for that time was a screaming deal.

I didn’t know what I know now and would have plaid loose with overclock ing but my experience was that only antique equipment seemed to overclock well, modern stuff had to stay reliable. The price difference early on for any k6-2 was too steep for my blood, that series topped out at 300mhz so maybe it would overclock but later k6-2’s never seemed to.

Riding the trailing edge meant I paid very little and could resell the system a year later (sometimes after an upgrade)
for what I paid (usually) and keep newish hardware without blowing a wad

Given I stuck with business software, internet , emulators and low end games it worked great keeping newer low end until about 2002 when everything fell apart and part quality became a$$.

I find myself wondering what exactly the difference between some k61s and k62s were exactly because I noticed a interesting coincidence in my 266mhz specimens

Three basically identical chips, 266afr all same voltage, one a k6 one a k6-2 one ink marked, two a laser etched

Maybe I’ll plug them in one day and see what they say in cpu-z would have thought that the k6 and k6-2 would have a different letter after the speed or a different voltage at least??

Wow, I don't remember seeing any k6-2 slower than 300. My first K6 was actually the 266 core shrink. I got that running 300, then 333 when I got braver. 350 wasn't doable on that board, but seemed to be after it was retired on another board (didn't work it very hard) ... mostly I think though the pre CXT parts, 2 or not, hit a wall somewhere just over 350, if you get early 350s you can run them at 366 max 375 if you're lucky. Later 350s had a bit more slack, half of them would jusssst do 400 decapped, but run pretty hot doing it.

I think that AMD used the same volts/temp coding for several years, you might find a dx5-133 and K6-233 with the same code.

Don't know how slow the K6 went, I had only seen 200 to 300 before, though heard of a 333... then I saw a 166 and was mildly surprised they came that slow.

I believe I paid somewhere near $50 from Compgeeks for the 266 in early 99, then about 6 months later they had the K6-2-400 for under $50 so I grabbed one of those and ran it at 450. I got that whole combo together real cheap the motherboard was a $20 closeout.

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-12-11, 05:00:

Wow, I don't remember seeing any k6-2 slower than 300. My first K6 was actually the 266 core shrink. I got that running 300, the […]
Show full quote

Wow, I don't remember seeing any k6-2 slower than 300. My first K6 was actually the 266 core shrink. I got that running 300, then 333 when I got braver. 350 wasn't doable on that board, but seemed to be after it was retired on another board (didn't work it very hard) ... mostly I think though the pre CXT parts, 2 or not, hit a wall somewhere just over 350, if you get early 350s you can run them at 366 max 375 if you're lucky. Later 350s had a bit more slack, half of them would jusssst do 400 decapped, but run pretty hot doing it.

I think that AMD used the same volts/temp coding for several years, you might find a dx5-133 and K6-233 with the same code.

Don't know how slow the K6 went, I had only seen 200 to 300 before, though heard of a 333... then I saw a 166 and was mildly surprised they came that slow.

I believe I paid somewhere near $50 from Compgeeks for the 266 in early 99, then about 6 months later they had the K6-2-400 for under $50 so I grabbed one of those and ran it at 450. I got that whole combo together real cheap the motherboard was a $20 closeout.

I can confirm the existence of these variants, There is a website around somewhere that lists all the different k6 variants (there are a surprising amount of them)

The main deal with K6-2 was 3Dnow, but that only made a difference if software was written to support it. K6-2 also benefitted from the die shrink on the 2nd wave of original K6 chips. I'm not aware of any other meaningful improvements.

Slow slowest K6 was the 166 (originally only available as 166 and 200 because 233 was harder to produce). I believe there were also die shrunk versions of the "K6-1" 166. Not sure about K6-2...maybe a mobile version?

Anonymous Coward wrote on 2021-12-11, 05:28:

The main deal with K6-2 was 3Dnow, but that only made a difference if software was written to support it. K6-2 also benefitted from the die shrink on the 2nd wave of original K6 chips. I'm not aware of any other meaningful improvements.

Slow slowest K6 was the 166 (originally only available as 166 and 200 because 233 was harder to produce). I believe there were also die shrunk versions of the "K6-1" 166. Not sure about K6-2...maybe a mobile version?

There were indeed die-shrunk K6 chips. There's even a K6-300 like this one here:
https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K6/AMD-K6%2030 … -K6-300AFR.html
Not sure about a die-shrunk 166MHz K6 though.

Tetrium wrote on 2021-12-11, 12:07:

There were indeed die-shrunk K6 chips. There's even a K6-300 like this one here: https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K6/AMD-K6%2030 … […]
Show full quote

Anonymous Coward wrote on 2021-12-11, 05:28:

The main deal with K6-2 was 3Dnow, but that only made a difference if software was written to support it. K6-2 also benefitted from the die shrink on the 2nd wave of original K6 chips. I'm not aware of any other meaningful improvements.

Slow slowest K6 was the 166 (originally only available as 166 and 200 because 233 was harder to produce). I believe there were also die shrunk versions of the "K6-1" 166. Not sure about K6-2...maybe a mobile version?

There were indeed die-shrunk K6 chips. There's even a K6-300 like this one here:
https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K6/AMD-K6%2030 … -K6-300AFR.html
Not sure about a die-shrunk 166MHz K6 though.

See, what’s up with the overlap, I literally have a k6-2 300afr in ink lettering but this one is a k6-1 with the same letters after the speed.

What do the letters mean I guess I should ask?

What, you didn't get your secret decoder ring? https://cpushack.com/K6xID.html

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-12-11, 13:59:

What, you didn't get your secret decoder ring? https://cpushack.com/K6xID.html

Ooo! Printing that! Do you have that for pentium, cyrix, rise, ibm, st, winchip?