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A History of Military Flight Simulations on the PC
by Len "Viking 1" Hjalmarson The Mature Years: 1997-2000 The upgrade decision became even more complicated as AMD released better CPUs. Their K6 had become popular as budget solutions and alternatives to the ubiquitous Intel brand, but it was tough to compete with Intel’s budget Celeron solution in 1998. This CPU had the Pentium II core with only half the cache. But that cache ran at full processor speed, and that made it a gaming powerhouse, at less than half the price of the same clock speed Pentium II chip. Moreover, the Celeron “A” overclocked beautifully, with most of us running 300MHz CPUs at 450MHz. |
This made things tough on AMD, but they were down and not out. When they released the K7 (Athlon) in 1999, the gaming market changed forever. The Athlon was and is a splendid feat of engineering. Completely x86 compatible and a sixth generation CPU, it outpaced the Pentium III at the same clock speeds. Introduced at the 450MHz mark, AMD quickly ramped up production until they were competing neck in neck with Pentium III clock speeds. The Athlon, however, was cheaper than Intel’s flagship CPU and AMD quickly stole market share from Intel. |
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This article is copyright ThrustMaster and Leonard Hjalmarson. It may not be reproduced in whole or in part by any means without permission. Email MiGMan with your experiences or any information related to this sim. |
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The contents of this website are copyright © 1998 - 2007 by MiGMan |
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