The Pentium III (marketed as Intel Pentium III Processor, informally PIII or P3) brand refers to
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
's
32-bit
In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in 32-bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform large calculation ...
x86
x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel based on the Intel 8086 microprocessor and its 8088 variant. The 8086 was introd ...
desktop and mobile
CPUs based on the sixth-generation
P6 microarchitecture
The P6 microarchitecture is the sixth-generation Intel x86 microarchitecture, implemented by the Pentium Pro microprocessor that was introduced in November 1995. It is frequently referred to as i686. It was succeeded by the NetBurst microarch ...
introduced on February 28, 1999. The brand's initial processors were very similar to the earlier
Pentium II
The Pentium II brand refers to Intel's sixth-generation microarchitecture (" P6") and x86-compatible microprocessors introduced on May 7, 1997. Containing 7.5 million transistors (27.4 million in the case of the mobile Dixon with 256 KB ...
-branded processors. The most notable differences were the addition of the
Streaming SIMD Extensions
In computing, Streaming SIMD Extensions (SSE) is a single instruction, multiple data (SIMD) instruction set extension to the x86 architecture, designed by Intel and introduced in 1999 in their Pentium III series of Central processing units (CPUs) ...
(SSE)
instruction set
In computer science, an instruction set architecture (ISA), also called computer architecture, is an abstract model of a computer. A device that executes instructions described by that ISA, such as a central processing unit (CPU), is called an ' ...
(to accelerate
floating point
In computing, floating-point arithmetic (FP) is arithmetic that represents real numbers approximately, using an integer with a fixed precision, called the significand, scaled by an integer exponent of a fixed base. For example, 12.345 can be ...
and parallel calculations), and the introduction of a controversial serial number embedded in the chip during manufacturing. The Pentium III is also a single-core processor.
Even after the release of the
Pentium 4
Pentium 4 is a series of single-core CPUs for desktops, laptops and entry-level servers manufactured by Intel. The processors were shipped from November 20, 2000 until August 8, 2008. The production of Netburst processors was active from 2000 ...
in late 2000, the Pentium III continued to be produced with new models introduced until early 2003, and were discontinued in April 2004 for desktop units, and May 2007 for mobile units.
Processor cores
Similarly to the Pentium II it superseded, the Pentium III was also accompanied by the
Celeron
Celeron is Intel's brand name for low-end IA-32 and x86-64 computer microprocessor models targeted at low-cost personal computers.
Celeron processors are compatible with IA-32
IA-32 (short for "Intel Architecture, 32-bit", commonly called ...
brand for lower-end versions, and the
Xeon
Xeon ( ) is a brand of x86 microprocessors designed, manufactured, and marketed by Intel, targeted at the non-consumer workstation, server, and embedded system markets. It was introduced in June 1998. Xeon processors are based on the same arc ...
for high-end (server and workstation) derivatives. The Pentium III was eventually superseded by the
Pentium 4
Pentium 4 is a series of single-core CPUs for desktops, laptops and entry-level servers manufactured by Intel. The processors were shipped from November 20, 2000 until August 8, 2008. The production of Netburst processors was active from 2000 ...
, but its
Tualatin core also served as the basis for the
Pentium M
The Pentium M is a family of mobile 32-bit single-core x86 microprocessors (with the modified Intel P6 microarchitecture) introduced in March 2003 and forming a part of the Intel Carmel notebook platform under the then new Centrino brand. The '' ...
CPUs, which used many ideas from the
P6 microarchitecture
The P6 microarchitecture is the sixth-generation Intel x86 microarchitecture, implemented by the Pentium Pro microprocessor that was introduced in November 1995. It is frequently referred to as i686. It was succeeded by the NetBurst microarch ...
. Subsequently, it was the
Pentium M microarchitecture of Pentium M branded CPUs, and not the
NetBurst
The NetBurst microarchitecture, called P68 inside Intel, was the successor to the P6 microarchitecture in the x86 family of central processing units (CPUs) made by Intel. The first CPU to use this architecture was the Willamette-core Pentium ...
found in
Pentium 4
Pentium 4 is a series of single-core CPUs for desktops, laptops and entry-level servers manufactured by Intel. The processors were shipped from November 20, 2000 until August 8, 2008. The production of Netburst processors was active from 2000 ...
processors, that formed the basis for Intel's energy-efficient
Core microarchitecture
The Intel Core microarchitecture (provisionally referred to as Next Generation Micro-architecture, and developed as Merom) is a multi-core processor microarchitecture launched by Intel in mid-2006. It is a major evolution over the Yonah, the p ...
of CPUs branded
Core 2
Intel Core 2 is the processor family encompassing a range of Intel's consumer 64-bit x86-64 single-, dual-, and quad-core microprocessors based on the Core microarchitecture. The single- and dual-core models are single- die, whereas the quad-cor ...
,
Pentium Dual-Core
The Pentium Dual-Core brand was used for mainstream x86-architecture microprocessors from Intel from 2006 to 2009 when it was renamed to Pentium. The processors are based on either the 32-bit '' Yonah'' or (with quite different microarchitectur ...
,
Celeron (Core), and Xeon.
Katmai
![Intel Pentium III Katmai](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Intel_Pentium_III_Katmai.jpg)
The first Pentium III variant was the ''Katmai'' (Intel product code 80525). It was a further development of the ''
Deschutes'' Pentium II. The Pentium III saw an increase of 2 million transistors over the Pentium II. The differences were the addition of execution units and SSE instruction support, and an improved L1
cache
Cache, caching, or caché may refer to:
Places United States
* Cache, Idaho, an unincorporated community
* Cache, Illinois, an unincorporated community
* Cache, Oklahoma, a city in Comanche County
* Cache, Utah, Cache County, Utah
* Cache County ...
controller (the L2 cache controller was left unchanged, as it would be fully redesigned for Coppermine anyway), which were responsible for the minor performance improvements over the "Deschutes" Pentium IIs. It was first released at speeds of 450 and 500 MHz in February 1999. 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 at 533 & 600 MHz respectively. The 'B' suffix indicated that it featured a 133 MHz FSB, instead of the 100 MHz FSB of prior models.
The Katmai contains 9.5 million transistors, not including the 512 Kbytes L2 cache (which adds 25 million transistors), and has dimensions of 12.3 mm by 10.4 mm (128 mm
2). It is fabricated in Intel's P856.5 process, a 0.25 micrometre complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (
CMOS
Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS, pronounced "sea-moss", ) is a type of metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) fabrication process that uses complementary and symmetrical pairs of p-type and n-type MOSFE ...
) process with five levels of
aluminum interconnect In integrated circuits (ICs), interconnects are structures that connect two or more circuit elements (such as transistors) together electrically. The design and layout of interconnects on an IC is vital to its proper function, performance, power ef ...
.
The Katmai used the same slot-based design as the Pentium II but with the newer
Slot 1
Slot 1 refers to the physical and electrical specification for the connector used by some of Intel's microprocessors, including the Pentium Pro, Celeron, Pentium II and the Pentium III. Both single and dual processor configurations were impleme ...
Single Edge Contact Cartridge (SECC) 2 that allowed direct CPU core contact with the heat sink. There have been some early models of the Pentium III with 450 and 500 MHz packaged in an older SECC cartridge intended for
original equipment manufacturer
An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...
s (OEMs).
A notable
stepping level for enthusiasts was SL35D. This version of Katmai was officially rated for 450 MHz, but often contained cache chips for the 600 MHz model and thus usually can run at 600 MHz.
Coppermine
![KL Intel Pentium III Coppermine](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/KL_Intel_Pentium_III_Coppermine.jpg)
The second version, codenamed Coppermine (Intel product code: 80526), was released on October 25, 1999, running at 500, 533, 550, 600, 650, 667, 700, and 733 MHz. From December 1999 to May 2000, Intel released Pentium IIIs running at speeds of 750, 800, 850, 866, 900, 933 and 1000 MHz (1 GHz). Both 100 MHz FSB and 133 MHz FSB models were made. For models that were already available with the same frequency, an "E" was appended to the model name to indicate cores using the new 0.18
μm fabrication process. An additional "B" was later appended to designate 133 MHz FSB models, resulting in an "EB" suffix. In overall performance, Coppermine had a small advantage over the
Advanced Micro Devices
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufact ...
(AMD)
Athlon
Athlon is the brand name applied to a series of x86-compatible microprocessors designed and manufactured by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). The original Athlon (now called Athlon Classic) was the first seventh-generation x86 processor and the fi ...
s it was released against, which was reversed when AMD applied their own die shrink and added an on-die L2 cache to the Athlon. Athlon held the advantage in floating-point intensive code, while the Coppermine could perform better when SSE optimizations were used, but in practical terms there was little difference in how the two chips performed, clock-for-clock. However, AMD were able to clock the Athlon higher, reaching speeds of 1.2 GHz before the launch of the Pentium 4.
In performance, Coppermine arguably marked a bigger step than Katmai by introducing an on-chip L2 cache, which Intel names ''Advanced Transfer Cache'' (ATC). The ATC operates at the core clock rate and has a capacity of 256 KB, twice that of the on-chip cache formerly on Mendocino Celerons. It is eight-way
set-associative and is accessed via a ''Double Quad Word Wide'' 256-bit bus, four times as wide as Katmai's. Further, latency was dropped to a quarter compared to Katmai. Another marketing term by Intel was ''Advanced System Buffering'', which encompassed improvements to better take advantage of a 133 MHz system bus. These include 6 fill buffers (vs. 4 on Katmai), 8 bus queue entries (vs. 4 on Katmai) and 4 write-back buffers (vs. 1 on Katmai).
Under competitive pressure from the
AMD
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufactur ...
Athlon
Athlon is the brand name applied to a series of x86-compatible microprocessors designed and manufactured by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). The original Athlon (now called Athlon Classic) was the first seventh-generation x86 processor and the fi ...
, Intel reworked the internals, finally removing some well-known
pipeline
Pipeline may refer to:
Electronics, computers and computing
* Pipeline (computing), a chain of data-processing stages or a CPU optimization found on
** Instruction pipelining, a technique for implementing instruction-level parallelism within a s ...
stalls. As a result, applications affected by the stalls ran faster on Coppermine by up to 30%. The Coppermine contained 29 million transistors and was fabricated in a 0.18 μm process.
The Coppermine was available in 370-pin FC-PGA or FC-PGA2 for use with
Socket 370
Socket 370 (also known as the PGA370 socket) is a CPU socket first used by Intel for Pentium III and Celeron processors to first complement and later replace the older Slot 1 CPU interface on personal computers. The "370" refers to the number of ...
, or in SECC2 for Slot 1 (all speeds except 900 and 1100). FC-PGA and Slot 1 Coppermine CPUs have an exposed die, however most higher frequency SKUs starting with the 866 MHz model were also produced in FC-PGA2 variants that feature an
integrated heat spreader
A heat spreader transfers energy as heat from a hotter source to a colder heat sink or heat exchanger. There are two thermodynamic types, passive and active. The most common sort of passive heat spreader is a plate or block of material having hi ...
(IHS). This in itself did not improve thermal conductivity, since it added another layer of metal and
thermal paste
Thermal paste (also called thermal compound, thermal grease, thermal interface material (TIM), thermal gel, heat paste, heat sink compound, heat sink paste or CPU grease) is a thermally conductive (but usually electrically insulating) chemi ...
between the die and the heatsink, but it greatly assisted in holding the heatsink flat against the die. Earlier Coppermines without the IHS made heatsink mounting challenging. If the heatsink was not situated flat against the die, heat transfer efficiency was greatly reduced. Some heatsink manufacturers began providing pads on their products, similar to what AMD did with the "Thunderbird" Athlon to ensure that the heatsink was mounted flatly. The enthusiast community went so far as to create shims to assist in maintaining a flat interface.
A 1.13 GHz version (S-Spec SL4HH) was released in mid-2000 but famously recalled after a collaboration between
HardOCP and
Tom's Hardware
''Tom's Hardware'' is an online publication owned by Future plc and focused on technology. It was founded in 1996 by Thomas Pabst. It provides articles, news, price comparisons, videos and reviews on computer hardware and high technology. The si ...
discovered various instabilities with the operation of the new CPU speed grade. The Coppermine core was unable to reliably reach the 1.13 GHz speed without various tweaks to the processor's microcode, effective cooling, higher voltage (1.75 V vs. 1.65 V), and specifically validated platforms.
Intel only officially supported the processor on its own VC820
i820-based motherboard, but even this motherboard displayed instability in the independent tests of the hardware review sites. In benchmarks that were stable, performance was shown to be sub-par, with the 1.13 GHz CPU equalling a 1.0 GHz model. Tom's Hardware attributed this performance deficit to relaxed tuning of the CPU and motherboard to improve stability. Intel needed at least six months to resolve the problems using a new cD0 stepping and re-released 1.1 GHz and 1.13 GHz versions in 2001.
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
's
Xbox
Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the na ...
game console
A video game console is an electronic device that outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can be played with a game controller. These may be home consoles, which are generally placed in a permanent location connected to a t ...
uses a variant of the Pentium III/Mobile Celeron family in a
Micro-PGA2
Socket 495, sometimes referred to as µPGA2 is a CPU socket for the Intel Pentium III and Celeron mobile processors. This socket was also used in Microsoft's Xbox Console, but in a BGA (ball grid array) format for the Xbox CPU. This socket replac ...
form factor. The sSpec designator of the chips is SL5Sx, which makes it more similar to the Mobile Celeron
Coppermine-128 processor. It shares with the Coppermine-128 Celeron its 128 KB L2 cache, and 180 nm process technology, but keeps the 8-way cache associativity from the Pentium III.
Although its codename could give the impression that it used
copper interconnect
In semiconductor technology, copper interconnects are interconnects made of copper. They are used in silicon integrated circuits (ICs) to reduce propagation delays and power consumption. Since copper is a better conductor than aluminium, ICs usi ...
s, in reality, its interconnects were
aluminium
Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. I ...
.
Coppermine T
This revision is an intermediate step between Coppermine and Tualatin, with support for lower-voltage system logic present on the latter but core power within previously defined voltage specs of the former so it could work in older system boards.
Intel used the latest FC-PGA2 Coppermines with the cD0 stepping and modified them so that they worked with low voltage system bus operation at 1.25 V
AGTL
Gunning transceiver logic (GTL) is a type of logic signaling used to drive electronic backplane buses. It has a voltage swing between 0.4 volts and 1.2 volts—much lower than that used in TTL and CMOS logic—and symmetrical parallel resistive t ...
as well as normal 1.5 V
AGTL+
Gunning transceiver logic (GTL) is a type of logic signaling used to drive electronic backplane buses. It has a voltage swing between 0.4 volts and 1.2 volts—much lower than that used in TTL and CMOS logic—and symmetrical parallel resistive t ...
signal levels, and would auto detect differential or single-ended clocking. This modification made them compatible to the latest generation Socket 370 boards supporting Tualatin CPUs while maintaining compatibility with older Socket 370 boards. The Coppermine T also had two way symmetrical multiprocessing capabilities, but only in Tualatin boards.
They can be distinguished from Tualatin processors by their part numbers, which include the digits "80533", e.g. the 1133 MHz SL5QK P/N is RK80533PZ006256, while the 1000 MHz SL5QJ P/N is RK80533PZ001256.
Tualatin
![KL Intel Pentium III Tualatin](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/KL_Intel_Pentium_III_Tualatin.jpg)
The third revision, Tualatin (80530), was a trial for Intel's new 0.13 μm process. Tualatin-based Pentium IIIs were released during 2001 until early 2002 at speeds of 1.0, 1.13, 1.2, 1.26, 1.33 and 1.4 GHz. A basic shrink of Coppermine, no new features were added, except for added data prefetch logic similar to Pentium 4 and Athlon XP for potentially better use of the L2 cache, although its use compared to these newer CPUs is limited due to the relatively smaller FSB bandwidth (FSB was still kept at 133 MHz).
Variants with 256 and 512 KB L2 cache were produced, the latter being dubbed Pentium III-S; this variant was mainly intended for low-power consumption servers and also exclusively featured SMP support within the Tualatin line.
Although the Socket 370 designation was kept, the use of 1.25 AGTL signaling in place of 1.5V AGTL+ rendered prior motherboards incompatible.
This confusion carried over to the chipset naming, where only the B-stepping of the i815 chipset was compatible with Tualatin processors. A new VRM guideline was also designed by Intel, version 8.5, which required finer voltage steps and debuted load line Vcore (in place of fixed voltage regardless of current on 8.4). Some motherboard manufacturers would mark the change with blue sockets (instead of white), and were often also backwards compatible with Coppermine CPUs.
The Tualatin also formed the basis for the highly popular Pentium III-M mobile processor, which became Intel's front-line mobile chip (the Pentium 4 drew significantly more power, and so was not well-suited for this role) for the next two years. The chip offered a good balance between power consumption and performance, thus finding a place in both performance notebooks and the "thin and light" category.
The Tualatin-based Pentium III performed well in some applications compared to the fastest Willamette-based Pentium 4, and even the Thunderbird-based Athlons. Despite this, its appeal was limited due to the aforementioned incompatibility with existing systems, and Intel's only officially supported chipset for Tualatins, the i815, could only handle 512 MB RAM as opposed to 1 GB of registered RAM with the older, incompatible 440BX chipset. However, the enthusiast community found a way to run Tualatins on then-ubiquitous BX chipset based boards, although it was often a non-trivial task and required some degree of technical skills.
Tualatin-based Pentium III CPUs can usually be visually distinguished from Coppermine-based processors by the metal integrated heat-spreader (IHS) fixed on top of the package. However, the last models of Coppermine Pentium IIIs also featured the IHS — the integrated heat spreader is actually what distinguishes the FC-PGA2 package from the
FC-PGA
A pin grid array (PGA) is a type of integrated circuit packaging. In a PGA, the package is square or rectangular, and the pins are arranged in a regular array on the underside of the package. The pins are commonly spaced 2.54 mm (0.1") a ...
— both are for Socket 370 motherboards.
Before the addition of the heat spreader, it was sometimes difficult to install a heatsink on a Pentium III. One had to be careful not to put force on the core at an angle because doing so would cause the edges and corners of the core to crack and could destroy the CPU. It was also sometimes difficult to achieve a flat mating of the CPU and heatsink surfaces, a factor of critical importance to good heat transfer. This became increasingly challenging with the Socket 370 CPUs, compared with their
Slot 1
Slot 1 refers to the physical and electrical specification for the connector used by some of Intel's microprocessors, including the Pentium Pro, Celeron, Pentium II and the Pentium III. Both single and dual processor configurations were impleme ...
predecessors, because of the force required to mount a socket-based cooler and the narrower, 2-sided mounting mechanism (Slot 1 featured 4-point mounting). As such, and because the 0.13 μm Tualatin had an even smaller core surface area than the 0.18 μm Coppermine, Intel installed the metal heatspreader on Tualatin and all future desktop processors.
The Tualatin core was named after the
Tualatin Valley
The Tualatin Valley is a farming and suburban region southwest of Portland, Oregon in the United States. The valley is formed by the meandering Tualatin River, a tributary of the Willamette River at the northwest corner of the Willamette Valley, ...
and
Tualatin River
The Tualatin River is a tributary of the Willamette River in Oregon in the United States. The river is about long, and it drains a fertile farming region called the Tualatin Valley southwest and west of Portland, Oregon, Portland at the northwes ...
in
Oregon
Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...
, where Intel has large manufacturing and design facilities.
Pentium III's SSE implementation
![Pentium III on motherboard](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Pentium_III_on_motherboard.jpg)
Since Katmai was built in the same 0.25 µm process as Pentium II "Deschutes", it had to implement
Streaming SIMD Extensions
In computing, Streaming SIMD Extensions (SSE) is a single instruction, multiple data (SIMD) instruction set extension to the x86 architecture, designed by Intel and introduced in 1999 in their Pentium III series of Central processing units (CPUs) ...
(SSE) using minimal silicon. To achieve this goal, Intel implemented the 128-bit architecture by
double-cycling the existing 64-bit data paths and by merging the SIMD-FP multiplier unit with the x87 scalar FPU multiplier into a single unit. To utilize the existing 64-bit data paths, Katmai issues each SIMD-FP instruction as two
μops. To compensate partially for implementing only half of SSE's architectural width, Katmai implements the SIMD-FP adder as a separate unit on the second dispatch port. This organization allows one half of a SIMD multiply and one half of an independent SIMD add to be issued together bringing the peak throughput back to four floating point operations per cycle — at least for code with an even distribution of multiplies and adds.
The issue was that Katmai's hardware-implementation contradicted the parallelism model implied by the SSE instruction-set. Programmers faced a code-scheduling dilemma: "Should the SSE-code be tuned for Katmai's limited execution resources, or should it be tuned for a future processor with more resources?" Katmai-specific SSE optimizations yielded the best possible performance from the Pentium III family but was suboptimal for Coppermine onwards as well as future Intel processors, such as the Pentium 4 and Core series.
Core specifications
Controversy about privacy issues
The Pentium III was the first x86 CPU to include a unique, retrievable, identification number, called Processor Serial Number (PSN). A Pentium III's PSN can be read by software through the
CPUID
In the x86 architecture, the CPUID instruction (identified by a CPUID opcode) is a processor supplementary instruction (its name derived from CPU IDentification) allowing software to discover details of the processor. It was introduced by Intel i ...
instruction if this feature has not been disabled through the
BIOS
In computing, BIOS (, ; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization during the ...
.
On November 29, 1999, the
Science and Technology Options Assessment
The 'Panel for the Future of Science and Technology'' (STOA) is a committee of members of the European Parliament devoted to all issues related to science and technology assessment.
Role
STOA is an official organ of the European Parliament, resp ...
(STOA) Panel of the
European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...
, following their report on electronic surveillance techniques asked parliamentary committee members to consider legal measures that would "prevent these chips from being installed in the computers of European citizens."
Intel eventually removed the PSN feature from Tualatin-based Pentium IIIs, and the feature was absent in Pentium 4 and Pentium M.
A largely equivalent feature, the Protected Processor Identification Number (PPIN) was later added to x86 CPUs with little public notice, starting with Intel's
Ivy Bridge architecture and compatible Zen 2 AMD CPUs. It is implemented as a set of
model-specific register
A model-specific register (MSR) is any of various control registers in the x86 instruction set used for debugging, program execution tracing, computer performance monitoring, and toggling certain CPU features.
History
With the introduction of th ...
s and is useful for
machine check exception handling.
Pentium III RNG (Random Number Generator)
A new feature was added to the Pentium III: a hardware-based
random number
In mathematics and statistics, a random number is either Pseudo-random or a number generated for, or part of, a set exhibiting statistical randomness.
Algorithms and implementations
A 1964-developed algorithm is popularly known as ''the Knuth s ...
generator.
[
] It has been described as "several oscillators combine their outputs and that odd waveform is sampled asynchronously."
See also
*
Pentium 4
Pentium 4 is a series of single-core CPUs for desktops, laptops and entry-level servers manufactured by Intel. The processors were shipped from November 20, 2000 until August 8, 2008. The production of Netburst processors was active from 2000 ...
*
List of Intel Pentium III processors
The Pentium III from Intel is a sixth-generation CPU targeted at the consumer market.
Desktop processors
"Katmai" (250 nm)
* 9.5 million transistors
* All models support: MMX, SSE
* The 'B' suffix denotes a 133 MHz FSB
* The '80525PYxx ...
*
List of Intel Celeron processors
The Celeron is a family of microprocessors from Intel targeted at the low-end consumer market. CPUs in the Celeron brand have used designs from sixth- to eighth-generation CPU microarchitectures.
Desktop processors
P6 based Celerons
Celeron ...
References
External links
Listing of various PII, PIII, and Celeron alphanumeric model designationsComparison of 7th generation x86 CPU architectures
Intel datasheets
Pentium III (Katmai)Pentium III (Coppermine)Pentium III (Tualatin)
{{Intel processors, p6
Computer-related introductions in 1999
Pentium 3
The Pentium III (marketed as Intel Pentium III Processor, informally PIII or P3) brand refers to Intel's 32-bit x86 desktop and mobile CPUs based on the sixth-generation P6 microarchitecture introduced on February 28, 1999. The brand's initial p ...
Superscalar microprocessors
32-bit microprocessors