K7

An x86 chip design from AMD. Faster and more scalable than the Pentium III. Should hit very high speeds for an x86 chip. AMD changed the name to Athlon, to be less technical sounding.

Actually, the there is another more important reason the name changed from K7 to Athlon, but also to do with marketing -- AMD had prior to the Althon released the K6, K6-2, and K6-3, All which have garnered a bad rap due to their dismal (and I mean dismal) fpp (floating point processing). Basically, their lack of a good fpp made them rather pathetic when compared to the likes of the PII and PIII. So, obviously AMD wasn't too keen on keeping this image, and seeing that the processor was basically built from the ground up, has a brilliant fpp this time around, and is exceedingly fast and scalable, they thought maybe a name change would eliminate some stigma and help get them some market share.

A year and a half later, we can definitely say it worked, AMD has almost triple the market share they did in '98 and still gaining. Go team.