Introduction

The Intel Pentium III processor delivers excellent performance for all PC software and is fully compatible with existing Intel® Architecture-based software. The Pentium III processor at 500MHz and 450MHz extends processing power further by offering performance headroom for business media, communication and Internet capabilities. Software designed for the Pentium III processor unleashes the full multimedia capabilities of the processor including full-screen, full-motion video, realistic graphics, and an enhanced, exciting Internet experience. Systems based on Pentium III processors also include the latest features to simplify system management and lower the total cost of ownership for large and small business environments. The Pentium III processor offers great performance for today’s and tomorrow’s applications as well as quality, reliability and compatibility from the world’s leading microprocessor company.

The Intel Pentium III processor family includes 500MHz and 450MHz versions for desktops and entry-level servers and workstations. All are binary compatible with previous generation Intel Architecture processors. The 0.25 micron manufacturing process enables these CPUs to include over 9.5 million transistors—resulting in more processing power in less space. The processor core is packaged in the Single Edge Contact Cartridge 2 (S.E.C.C.2.) or the Single Edge Contact Cartridge (S.E.C.C.) enabling ease of design and flexible motherboard architecture.

The Pentium III processor family’s significant performance improvement over previous Intel Architecture processors is based on the seamless combination of the P6 microarchitecture, Internet Streaming SIMD Extensions, Intel MMX media enhancement technology, and a processor serial number. The result is higher software performance plus headroom for applications that take advantage of the Pentium III processor.

Product Highlights

 

	Available in 500MHz and 450MHz speeds.
	Utilizes Intel’s 0.25 micron manufacturing process for increased processor core frequencies and reduced power consumption.
	Includes Internet Streaming SIMD Extensions, 70 new instructions enabling advanced imaging, 3D, streaming audio and video, and speech recognition applications, as well as Intel MMX media enhancement technology.
	The Pentium III processor at 500MHz delivers up to 93% more 3D processing performance (as measured by 3D WinBench* 99—3D Lighting and Transformation test) and 42% more multimedia performance (as measured by MultimediaMark* 99) than the 450MHz Pentium® II processor.
	Dual Independent Bus (DIB) architecture increases bandwidth and performance over single-bus processors.
	The Pentium III processor utilizes the Intel® 440BX AGPset.
	Includes a processor serial number, the first of Intel’s planned building blocks for PC security.
	32K (16K/16K) non-blocking, level-one cache and 512K unified, non-blocking, level-two cache provide fast access to heavily used data.
	The Pentium III processor supports memory cacheability for up to 4GB of addressable memory space.
	Enables scalable systems to be expanded to two processors and 64GB of physical memory.

P6 Microarchitecture Dynamic Execution Technology:

 

	Multiple branch prediction: Predicts program execution through several branches, thereby accelerating the flow of work to the processor.
	Dataflow analysis: Creates an optimized, reordered schedule of instructions by analyzing data dependencies between instructions.
	Speculative execution: Carries out instructions speculatively, and based on this optimized schedule, ensures that the processor’s superscalar execution units remain busy, thereby boosting overall performance.

Internet Streaming SIMD Extensions:

The Internet Streaming SIMD Extensions consist of 70 new instructions and includes single instruction, multiple data for floating point, additional SIMD-integer and cacheability control instructions. Some of the technologies that benefit from the Internet Streaming SIMD Extensions include advanced imaging, 3D, streaming audio and video, and speech recognition applications. Specifically:

	Higher resolution and higher-quality images can be viewed and manipulated than was previously possible on consumer PCs.
	High-quality audio, MPEG2 video and simultaneous MPEG2 encoding and decoding.
	Reduced CPU utilization for speech recognition, as well as higher accuracy and faster response times.

Intel® MMX™ Media Enhancement Technology:

Intel MMX technology is designed as a set of 57 basic, general-purpose integer instructions and four data types that are easily applied to the needs of a wide diversity of multimedia and communications applications. Highlights of the technology include:

	Single Instruction, Multiple Data (SIMD) technique.
	Eight 64-bit wide Intel MMX technology registers.

Intel® Processor Serial Number:

The processor serial number, the first of Intel’s planned building blocks for PC security, serves as an electronic serial number for the processor and, by extension, its system or user, enabling the system/user to be identified by networks and applications. The processor serial number will be used in applications that benefit from stronger forms of system and user identification, such as the following:

	Applications using security capabilities: Managed access to new Internet content and services; electronic document exchange.
	Manageability applications: Asset management; remote system load and configuration.
	Information management applications: Help desk and error reporting; data backup protection.

Other significant features of the Pentium® III processor include:

 

	S.E.C.C.2. packaging, developed by Intel, enables high-volume availability, improved handling protection, and a common form factor for future high-performance processors.
	High-performance Dual Independent Bus (DIB) architecture (system bus and cache bus) for high bandwidth, performance and scalability with future system technologies.
	The system bus supports multiple outstanding transactions to increase bandwidth availability. It also provides "glueless" support for up to two processors. This enables low-cost, two-way symmetric multiprocessing, providing a significant performance boost for multitasking operating systems and multithreaded applications.
	A 512K unified, non-blocking, level-two (L2) cache improves performance by reducing the average memory access time and by providing fast access to recently used instructions and data. Performance is enhanced through a dedicated 64-bit cache bus. The speed of the L2 cache scales with the processor core frequency. This processor also incorporates separate 16K level-one caches, one for instructions and one for data.
	Both the Pentium III processors 500MHz and 450MHz support memory cacheability for up to 4GB of addressable memory space.
	Available with Error Correction Code (ECC) functionality on the level-two cache bus for applications where data intensity and reliability are essential.
	A pipelined Floating-Point Unit (FPU) for supporting the 32-bit and 64-bit formats specified in IEEE standard 754 as well as an 80-bit format.
	Parity-protected address/request and response system bus signals with a retry mechanism for high data integrity and reliability.

The Pentium III processor also includes several features used for testing and performance monitoring:

 

	Built-in Self Test (BIST) provides single stuck-at fault coverage of the microcode and large logic arrays, as well as testing of the instruction cache, data cache, Translation Lookaside Buffers (TLBs), and ROMs.
	IEEE 1149.1 Standard Test Access Port and Boundary Scan mechanism enables testing of the Pentium III processor and system connections through a standard interface.
	Internal performance counters for performance monitoring and event counting.
	Incorporates an on-die diode that can be used to monitor the die temperature. A thermal sensor located on the motherboard can monitor the die temperature of the Pentium III processor for thermal management purposes.

The Pentium III processor may contain design defects or errors known as errata. Current characterized errata are available upon request.

Sources for performance data: Pentium III Processor Performance Brief, System configuration: Intel® SE440-BX2 motherboard; 128MB SDRAM; Adaptec* AHA294OUW2W SCSI/PCI Hard Disk Controller/Bus; Seagate Cheetah* ST391021,W; Diamond Multimedia Viper* V550 AGP with 16MB SGRAM; Windows* 98 – build 1998; Toshiba* XM-6201B SCSI CD-ROM Drive; Diamond MonsterSound* M80 PCI