In the 6th Generation CPU Comparisons, Paul Hsieh discusses the Intel Pentium II, AMD K6, and Cyrix 6x86MX MMX capable CPUs. The K6 architecture combines P-II and 6x86MX ideas, emphasizing short latencies and RISC operations. The K6’s branch prediction mechanism outperforms the P-II, with fewer stalls and better prediction rates. The K6 FPU has faster basic operations than the P-II but struggles with complex instructions. The K6’s cache size exceeds the P-II’s, though it is less associative. The K6-3 offers improved performance with a larger L2 cache. However, the K6 faces challenges with memory bandwidth, particularly in block move and bursting over the bus.
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