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750 & 800 MHzDecember 1999 saw Intel and AMD engaging in the practice of pre-announcing new products. What this meant was that both companies staged the official launch of their new processors before they were readily available to system builders or the general public. The processors that Intel launched in this manner in December 1999, were the Pentium III 750 and 800 MHz parts (AMD pre-launched the Athlon 800). Pre-announcing processors in this manner is an unfortunate by-product of the MHz war which is currently raging between Intel and AMD. Both the Pentium III 750 and 800 Mhz processors did not appear in systems until around mid-January 2000, and this is why we are only examining them now. Pentium III 750 & 800, what's new?The Pentium III 750 & 800 MHz processors are the second batch of "Coppermine" Pentium III processors to be launched by Intel. This means that apart from the increased clock speed of 750 and 800 MHz, the new Pentium III processors bring nothing new to the "x86" CPU market. That in itself is not a bad thing as Intel's 0.18 micron "Coppermine" Pentium III design is a very good update of the ageing P6 core. The new Pentium III 750 will be available in a 100 MHz bus version only (7.5x), whilst the 800 Mhz version will be available in both 100 Mhz bus (8x) and 133 MHz bus versions (6x). Like all other Pentium III processors, SSE instruction support is a standard feature of these new chips.
Much of the performance of the Pentium III 750 and 800 MHz processors can be attributed to the excellent Level 2 cache implementation on
the "Coppermine". As stated before, the "Coppermine's" 256 Kb Level 2 cache RAM is integrated onto the silicon of the processor die,
allowing it to operate at the same clock frequency as the processor. Coupled to this is the very low latency of the Level 2 cache RAM on
the "Coppermine", which results in impressive performance from the PIII 750 and 800. We can compare the latencies of the "Coppermine"
Pentium III to other processors below:
It is this extremely low Level 2 cache latency* which gives the Pentium III such good performance, (although there are other factors which affect the overall cache performance, such as associativity) allowing the ageing P6 design to keep up with AMD's 7th generation Athlon (1/2 to 1/25 speed Level 2 cache) in terms of performance. As the Pentium III's Level 2 cache runs at the same speed as the CPU core, it removes the problem of having to source external SRAM chips which can cope with high operating frequencies. The only area where the Pentium III still loses out to the Athlon is Floating Point Performance, where the Athlon still remains supreme. Apart from that, the Pentium III in it's 100 Mhz bus versions are compatible with a large number of BX chipset based motherboards and are an excellent upgrade option. Pentium III 750 & 800, the verdict.The performance of the new Pentium III 750 and 800 MHz processors is very impressive indeed, manageing to come to a similar level as that of the AMD Athlon. The low latency Level 2 cache and high clock speed are responsible for this. As to whether you should buy either the new Pentium III 750 or 800 MHz processors, it really is a matter of whether you want to spend the high asking price that Intel wants for either of these chips. If you do spend the money, these processors are extremely fast. The only problem may be that of supply as Intel has been experiencing difficulties in supplying these chips in volume (Janary/February 2000), and they may only be initially available in machines from large PC companies such as Dell and Gateway. Overall, another set of extremely fast processors from Intel. Pentium III 750 & 800 MHz specifications.
*Cache figures quoted from Ace's Hardware
Other Intel Processors at:
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