K6-III was never excellent. It was a short lived overpriced option for desperate socket7 users unwilling to do the sensible thing and upgrade whole platform (brand new Celeron 300A + 440BX motherboard cheaper than just the K6-3 cpu alone). Paper launch in February 1999 with first real chips shipping in March. First K6-3 to show up in Japan was K6-III/400 at hilarious 35,500 yen = $295! https://akiba-pc.watch.impress.co.jp/hotline/990313/p_cpu.ht... This is the price of full Pentium II 400MHz or over four almost year old by this point and still faster Celerons 300A.
K6-III/450 24,800 $236 haha whats up with that price? Either AMD stopped shipping already and its leftovers or its a sucker tax for ss7 owners wanting to max out.
Looks like by the time Durons showed up nobody was bothering to stock K6-3, only 3 vendors in Akihabara had them. Those crazy prices werent limited to Japan, Poland September 1999:
Pentium III 450MHz 1260 $308
Pentium II 400MHz 943 $231
Celeron 366MHz 348 $85 (300A missing from the list, but was still available and selling cheaper)
K6-III/450 1108 $271 HAHA
K6-III/400 877 $215
K6-2/400 397 $97 haha
K6-2/350 230 $56
For a brief moment in 1999 AMD pretended K6-3 was equal to Pentium 2/3 and tried to price it accordingly but market corrected them swiftly. There was a 1/3 performance gap between K6-3 and overclocked Celeron.
By January 2000 prices corrected to saner bus still delusional levels https://akiba-pc.watch.impress.co.jp/hotline/20000108/p_cpu....
K6-III/450 14,550 $140
K6-III/400 8,980 $85
Celeron 300A $57
First time Duron shows up in Akihabara is June 17 2000 https://akiba-pc.watch.impress.co.jp/hotline/20000617/p_cpu....
Celeron 533A 10,570 $100
Duron 600MHz 9,990 $95
K6-III/450 24,800 $236 haha whats up with that price? Either AMD stopped shipping already and its leftovers or its a sucker tax for ss7 owners wanting to max out.
K6-III/400 14,800 $140
K6-2/550 7,949 $76
K6-2/533 5,970 $57
K6-2/500 5,350 $50
Week later https://akiba-pc.watch.impress.co.jp/hotline/20000624/p_cpu....
Celeron 533A 9,980 $95
Duron 600MHz 9,480 $90
K6-III/450 24,800 $230 AHAHAHAHAHA
K6-III/400 15,800 $150
K6-2/550 7,940 $76
K6-2/533 6,700 $63
K6-2/500 5,300 $50
Looks like by the time Durons showed up nobody was bothering to stock K6-3, only 3 vendors in Akihabara had them. Those crazy prices werent limited to Japan, Poland September 1999:
Pentium III 450MHz 1260 $308
Pentium II 400MHz 943 $231
Celeron 366MHz 348 $85 (300A missing from the list, but was still available and selling cheaper)
K6-III/450 1108 $271 HAHA
K6-III/400 877 $215
K6-2/400 397 $97 haha
K6-2/350 230 $56
For a brief moment in 1999 AMD pretended K6-3 was equal to Pentium 2/3 and tried to price it accordingly but market corrected them swiftly. There was a 1/3 performance gap between K6-3 and overclocked Celeron.
https://web.archive.org/web/20080418185205/http://arstechnic...
https://web.archive.org/web/20070918073530/http://arstechnic...
https://web.archive.org/web/20070918135927/http://arstechnic...