Introduction
As the race to 1GHz comes to a head, we see that AMD is the winner at reaching the "oh so sought after speed." There have been several reviews on the AMD Athlon 1GHz and the benchmarks show it performing very well, but what about Intel's new 1GHz FC-PGA processor. How does it perform, you may be asking. Well, let's have a look at the features and some benchmarks.
Features
The basic features of the Pentium III include:
- Support for Speeds up to 1.13GHz
- 0.18-micron Process
- 256KB Advanced Transfer Cache
- 100 and 133mhz System Bus Frequency
- SIMD Extensions
Now let's take a more in-depth look at some of the features included.
In case you're not aware of what FC-PGA is, let me run down the basics for you. FC-PGA stands for Flip Chip Pin Grid Array. It is a form factor that allows the Pentium III to fit into a supporting PGA370 socket. It makes use of the zero-insertion force socket used by the Celeron processors.
The Pentium III processor includes and integrated on-die 256KB 8 way L2 Cache that utilizes the new Advanced Transfer Architecture with 256bit wide bus. The processor also has a 16kb L1 intrusion cache and 16kb L1 data cache. All these are running at the full core speed of the processor. The FC-PGA Pentium III processor utilizes a dedicated L2 cache bus, which maintains the dual independent bus architecture. The processor also supports addressable, cacheable memory up to 64GB
The new SIMD extensions, as everyone probably knows, allows for improved floating point as well as better 3D performance when it comes to video and games.
The FC-PGA 1GHz utilizes the new cC0 stepping, which allows for a smaller reduction in the die used on the processor. This will allow for higher speeds then with the older cB0 stepping.
Unlike previous Pentium class processors, the new FC-PGA runs at a higher recommended voltage of 1.8v. The Pentium III can be used with older BX boards, but be sure that the board supports the required voltage.
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