Pentium III

The Pentium III is an x86 (more precisely, an i686) architecture microprocessor by Intel, introduced on February 26, 1999. Initial versions were very similar to the earlier Pentium II, the most notable difference being the addition of SSE instructions. As with the Pentium II, there was also a low-end Celeron version and a high-end Xeon version. The Pentium III was eventually superseded by the Pentium 4. An improvement on the Pentium III design is the Pentium M.

Pentium III cores

Katmai

The original version, Katmai, was pretty much the same as the Pentium II (using a 0.25µm fabrication process), the only differences being the introduction of SSE, and an improved L1 cache controller (which was the cause of the minor performance improvements over the latter PIIs). It was first released at speeds of 450 and 500 MHz. Two more versions were released: 550 MHz on May 17, 1999 and 600 MHz on August 2, 1999. On September 27, 1999 Intel released the 533B and 600B running with 533/600 MHz but using a 133 MHz FSB, all others use 100 MHz FSB. The Katmai used the same slot based design as the Pentium II.

Coppermine

The second version, Coppermine, had an integrated full-speed 256 KiB L2 cache with lower latency, which improved performance over Katmai. Under competitive pressure from AMD’s Athlon processor, Intel also re-worked the chip internally, and finally fixed the well known instruction pipeline stalls. The result was a remarkable 30% increase in instruction processing performance.

It was built on a 0.18 μm process. Pentium III Coppermines running at 500, 533, 550, 600, 650, 667, 700, and 733 MHz were first released on October 25, 1999. From December 1999 to May 2000, Intel released Pentium IIIs running at speeds of 750, 800, 850, 866, 900, 933 and 1000 MHz (1GHz).

A 1.13GHz version was released in mid-2000, but famously recalled after a popular hardware review website proved it was not stable enough to compile the Linux kernel. The problem was traced to the integrated cache, which simply could not operate at speeds above 1GHz. Intel needed at least six months to resolve this problem and released 1.1 and 1.13 GHz versions in 2001.

Coppermine-T

A Coppermine CPU with FC-PGA2 pinout of the Tualatin types - not compatible to FC-PGA mainboards

Tualatin

The third version, Tualatin, was really just a trial for Intel's new 0.13 μm process. Had the Pentium 4 been on a sounder footing, it's doubtful whether Tualatin would have ever been made. Tualatin performed quite well, especially in variations which had 512 KiB L2 cache (called the Pentium III-S). The Pentium III-S variant was mainly intended for, and used in servers, especially those where power consumption mattered, i.e., thin blade servers.

Pentium III Tualatins were released during 2001 until early 2002 at speeds of 1.0, 1.13, 1.2, 1.26, 1.33 and 1.4 GHz. Intel didn't want a repeat of the situation where the performance of a lower priced Celeron rivaled that of the more expensive Pentium II, so Tualatin never ran faster than 1.4 GHz, the introductory clock rate of the Pentium 4. Later on, the Pentium M proved that the design was good for at least 1.7GHz on the 0.13 μm process.

The Tualatin core was named after the Tualatin Valley and Tualatin River in the Oregon area.

Core specifications

Katmai (0.25µm)

• L1-Cache: 16 + 16 KB (Data + Instructions)
• L2-Cache: 512 KB, external chips on CPU module with 50% of CPU-speed
• MMX, SSE
• Slot 1
• Front side bus: 100, 133 MHz
• VCore: 2.0V, (600 MHz: 2.05V)
• First release: May 17, 1999
• Clockrate: 450-600 MHz
  • 100 MHz FSB: 450, 500, 550, 600 MHz
  • 133 MHz FSB: 533, 600 MHz (B-models)

Coppermine (0.18µm)

• L1-Cache: 16 + 16 KB (Data + Instructions)
• L2-Cache: 256 KB, fullspeed
• MMX, SSE
• Slot 1, Socket 370 (FC-PGA)
• Front side bus: 100, 133 MHz
• VCore: 1.65, 1.70, 1.75V
• First release: October 25, 1999
• Clockrate: 550 - 1133 MHz
  • 100 MHz FSB: 550, 600, 650, 700, 750, 800, 850, 900, 1000, 1100 MHz (E-Models)
  • 133 MHz FSB: 533, 600, 667, 733, 800, 866, 933, 1000, 1133 MHz (EB-Models)

Coppermine-T (0.18µm)

• L1-Cache: 16 + 16 KB (Data + Instructions)
• L2-Cache: 256 KB, fullspeed
• MMX, SSE
• Socket 370 (FC-PGA2)
• Front side bus: 133 MHz
• VCore: 1.75V
• First release: June, 2001
• Clockrate: 866, 933, 1000, 1133 MHz

Tualatin (0.13µm)

• L1-Cache: 16 + 16 KB (Data + Instructions)
• L2-Cache: 256 or 512KB, fullspeed
• MMX, SSE
• Socket 370 (FC-PGA2)
• Front side bus: 133 MHz
• VCore: 1.45, 1.475V
• First release: 2001
• Clockrate: 1000 -1400 Mhz
  • Pentium III (256 KB L2-Cache): 1000, 1133, 1200, 1333 MHz
  • Pentium III-S (512 KB L2-Cache): 1133, 1266, 1400 Mhz

External links

• Intel press release introducing Pentium III (http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/dp022699.htm)
• Intel press release introducing 0.18 μm Pentium IIIs (http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/dp102599.htm)
• Listing of various PII, PIII, and Celeron alphanumeric model designations (http://users.erols.com/chare/remark.htm)

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