AMD K6-III and K6-III+ (Sharptooth) processors
Introduction: February 1999
The K6-III was an x86 microprocessor manufactured by AMD, the last and fastest of all Socket 7 processors. It achieved the distinction of being the fastest x86 processor on the market on release, and remained highly competitive for a considerable time afterwards.
In conception, the design was simple: it was a K6-2 with an additional level of cache on-die (Level 2). The original K6-2 had a 64KB primary cache and a much larger amount of motherboard-mounted cache (usually 512KB or 1MB but varying depending on the choice of main board). In contrast the competing Intel parts used 32KB of primary cache and either 128KB of full-speed secondary cache integrated into the CPU itself (Celeron) or 512KB of half-speed cache mounted on a processor daughter board (Pentium II, Pentium III). The K6-III, however, used both methods: it had 64KB primary cache, a massive 256KB on-chip, full-speed secondary cache (similar to the Celeron's but twice the size), and the variable size motherboard mounted cache on the Socket 7 main board became a tertiary level.
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.