AMD’s K6-III ‘Sharptooth’ debuted this week in 1999 with on-die L2 cache to savage the Intel Pentium II — it also held the line against the Pentium III

In 1999, AMD introduced the K6-III 'Sharptooth' processors with on-die L2 cache, challenging Intel's Pentium II and III chips. The K6-III marked a significant advancement over the K6-2 line, outperforming the Pentium II 450. Despite Intel's subsequent release of the Pentium III Katmai CPUs, the K6-III maintained a competitive edge in cache latency-sensitive applications. The shift to on-die cache in the K6-III improved performance compared to its predecessors and Intel's offerings. AMD's Socket 7 era ended on a high note with the Super Socket 7 motherboards, offering enhanced features and CPU support.