iYAN inside! Online Index HardwareThe Intel Pentium III Processor
Inside and Outside
With a big show, Intel presented their new Pentium III. "Power for the next generation of Internet and PC applications" they say. The name "Pentium III" has been chosen strategically by Intel. Originally this name was reserved for their seventh generation processors (codenamed Williamette). The Pentium III is part of the sixth generation, just like the Pentium II. Therefore, a Pentium II at 450MHz and a Pentium III at the same speed are equal in performance. So... what's the difference?
The differences
There are three differences. First of all, the cache chips are located on the right of the processor. They used to be placed left and right of the processor on the Pentium II. The box has also changed from closed (SECC) to half open (SECC 2). The cooler is closer to the processor and the concept provides more air (cooling) around the cartridge. The second difference is an addition of SSE; 70 new instructions (Streaming SIMD Extension). These instructions accelerate 3D applications, enhances speechregocnition and -in some cases- improves Internet navigation. Instruction can be executed in parallel because of the SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data) mode. This is also a nice improvement. A disadvantage is that you only benefit from having a Pentium III if the applications you use, are based on these instructions. Otherwise there is no difference at all.
The latest feature of the Pentium III processor is the personal ID serialnumber. Serialnumber are already on every component, but this number transmits an electronic signal that can be traced in networks, including the internet. In the second part of our review we'll talk more abou that. The serialnumber is disabled in advance and can be enabled by software, provided by Intel. This way, the user can decide on his/her own, if the electronic ID is usefull.
Our system
Our system looks like this:
The Pentium III has steppingnumber SL3CD and was packed dated February 12th, two weeks before the release. Other than previously mentioned by hardware sites, the processor still uses a voltage of 2.0. Intel had mentioned a decrease to 1.8, but that was scrapped for use in workstations.
- Intel Pentium III 500MHz processor
- Abit BX6 moederbord (BX chipset)
- 128Mb PC100 memory
- Asus V3400TNT 16Mb AGP graphicscard
- 6,5Gb Seagate Medalist harddisk
- CD-ROM 50x Asus
- A-Open HX45 ATX miditower
Overclocking?
The overclocking era looks over since the Pentium III. Both multiplier and busspeed are locked. Intel will block all new releases of processors from now on. We succeeded anyway to reach 522MHz (actually 515) with this system. By enabling the turbo mode in the BIOS of the Abit motherboard, we changed to 103MHz FSB. This is not unusual, because no electronic signal is 100% correct; therefore Intel did not block frequencies between 95 en 105MHz FSB. Delighted by this 3% increase we wanted to try 560MHz (112FSB). The system booted without any problem. Windows 98 started. Everything looked OK, but just before the load was completed the system locked. A vague grey screen appeared. Obviously the result of locking... The system would have worked without a doubt... This Abit motherboard (with BIOS upgrade 04/02/99) can even function with a busspeed of 153MHz! In theory that would result in 765MHz! But... blocked...
A benchmark of the Pentium III and other systems between 400 and 500MHz results in the figure alongside. As said, not very interesting; the only thing we measure this way is a speed of 500MHz. A constant increase is noticable, compared to other processors. As we see, the Celeron 400 @500MHz beats the Pentium III on FPU intensive benchmarks. The integer part is far higher on the Pentium III, however, so regular Windows application will perform faster on the Pentium III.
