Pentium II and III: Brothers
Source: Tom's Hardware – Keywords: intel, cpu, history
Pentium II and III: Brothers
Released in 1997, the Pentium II was an adaptation of the Pentium Pro aimed at the general public. It was quite similar to the Pentium Pro, but the cache memory was different. Instead of using a cache at the same frequency as the processor (which is expensive), the 512 KB Level 2 cache operated at half-frequency. In addition, the Pentium II abandoned the classic socket for a cartridge containing the processor and the Level 2 cache, which was in the cartridge and not on the motherboard or in the processor itself.
New features compared to the Pentium Pro were essentially MMX (SIMD) support and a doubling of the Level 1 cache. The first Pentium III (Katmai) was very similar to the Pentium II. Released in 1999, its new feature was essentially support for SSE (SIMD instructions), but the rest was identical.
| Code name | Klamath (Pentium II 0.35µ), Deschutes (Pentium II 0.25µ), Katmai (Pentium III) |
| Date released | 1997, 1998, 1999 |
| Architecture | 32 bits |
| Data bus | 64 bits |
| Address bus | 36 bits (32 bits on the P III) |
| Maximum memory | 64 GB (4 GB on the P III) |
| L1 cache | 16 KB + 16 KB |
| L2 cache | external, 512 KB (1/2 CPU frequency) |
| Clock frequency | 233-300 MHz (Klamath), 300-450 MHz (Deschutes), 450-600 MHz (Klamath) |
| FSB | 66-100-133 MHz |
| FPU | built-in |
| SIMD | MMX (SSE) |
| Fabrication process | 350 nm (Klamath), 250 nm (Deschutes, Katmai) |
| Number of transistors | 7,500,000 + cache (Pentium II), 9,500,000 + cache (Pentium III) |
| Power consumption | 25-35 W |
| Voltage | 2.8 V (0.35µ), 2 V (0.25µ) |
| Die surface area | 204 mm² (0.35µ), 131 mm² (0.25µ), 128 mm² (PIII) + cache |
| Connector | Slot 1 |
The Pentium II and III had 512 KB of Level 2 cache (31 million transistors). One Pentium II actually had an on-chip 256 KB Level 2 cache—the Pentium II Mobile Dixon. Using a 180 nm fabrication process, this processor was significantly faster than the desktop versions.
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Wasn’t one of the key features of the Pentium Pro line of processors the increase in IRQs to 256 rather than the 16 of the previous generations?
In the days of virtual IRQs assigned by windows it's easy to forget the headache of trying to install multiple interface cards without running out of resources.
am I mistaken? or the Maximum memory figures are wrong? 4096MB or is it KB on 386, 486 and Pentium MMX class CPU's. and 64MB on P-II and so on.
Modern Intel CPU: P1-> P3 -> P4M -> C2D -> C2Q
Modern AMD CPU: P1(Intel) -> P3(Intel) -> K8 -> K10
Next gen CPU: Modified P1
The Pentium 1 & 3 are possibly the most widely base processor in modern computing. Even AMD's chips are based on them.
Hmm....
Interesting...AMD chips based on P3... EHEHEHEHHEHEHE
I think you need a...khhmmm...LIFE
cheers
Nice article that made me a little bit misty-eyed and nostalgic (being of the original 8086 generation)
Did a bit of a clear-out of my parts boxes not so long ago and found a couple of PPro's, a 486DX2/66, a 386SX and a 386DX. Threw them out but perhaps should have built a little shrine? ;p
Cheers.
There are some errors in the article, Pentium M Dothan had a 2.26GHz model which is not mentioned there, they had a VCore of 1.356V and a TDP of 27W, not 36W like stated here, also it's die size is 88mm2, not 87mm2, it also came as a socket 478 which was incompatible with the Pentium 4 socket 478 due to it's electrical differences.