The Intel Coppermine
866Mhz FCPGA processor

Friday, May 26, 2000


Introduction

The newcomer to the grand family of Intel processors is the FC-PGA form-factor PIII Coppermine 866MHz processor. When we first received a sample of this CPU for testing, we expected to see brilliant performance. Even though our test system was not exactly designed for this type of processor - we had to employ a Slot 1 to Socket 370 autotrgulated Slocket adaptor - the 866MHz chip still managed to pull its weight. Indeed, even our test system chipset (Intel 440BX) - which normally operates at 100MHz - needed to be pushed over & above the call of duty - right to a setting of 133MHz, for obvious reasons. It certainly said something to us when this 866MHz FC-PGA chip managed to push past through the petty barriers noted above, and still managed to burn up the charts - in an environment not truly meant to accomodate it. With that in mind, let's take a look at this chip, and what it has to offer.


The particularities

Being, as it is, from the same family as the Pentium III Coppermine 850MHz that we reviewed earlier, the Pentium III 866MHZ FC-PGA posesses many of the same characteristics that apply to the entire Coppermine family.


Dual Independent Bus (DIB)

The "Dual Independant Bus (DIB)" consists of placing the L2 cache on an independant, dedicated bus, which serves to optimize memory transfers.



Non-Blocking Level 1 Cache

This feature consists of two 16KB L1 caches; one for storing data, the other instructions.



256 KB, Level 2 Advanced Transfer Cache

ATC (Advanced Transfer Cache) L2 cache is signifies the fact that the L2 cache is integrated into the body of the chip itself, and runs at the same speed as the CPU. The ATC L2 has the following features:

  • Non-Blocking, full-speed, and integrated on the processor die
  • 8-way associative
  • 256-bit wide data bus
  • Reduced latency when compared with conventional cache


    Non-Blocking Level 2 Cache

    Certain versions of the Pentium III have an external L2 cache. This cache consists of 512KB of non-blocking memory which provides better memory performance relative to an L2 cache mounted on the motherboard itself. By integrating this cache within the processor, it is possible to reduce access time, thus allowing faster access to recently used instructions, and data. The integrated cache also uses a dedicated 64-bit bus.



    Advanced System Buffering

    "Advanced System Buffering" is a optimization of teh bus system's buffers, and of the queue's wait order, which results in more efficient use of the bandwidth available on 100MHz, and 133MHz busses. This feature is composed of:

  • 4 writeback buffers
  • 6 fill buffers
  • 8 bus queue entries


    Internet Streaming SIMD Extensions

    Internet Streaming SIMD Instructions consists of a collection of 70 instructions. This includes instructions for performing multiplication on floating-point data, instructions dealing with integer SIMD values, and cache control instructions. A few benefits of these instuctions are:

  • Better manipulation of high quality images, at higher resolutions than was previosly possible

  • Higher quality sound, and encoding/decoding of MPEG2.

  • Substancial reduction of CPU usage for tasks such as voice recognition, as well as an increase in efficiency, and the quality of such tasks.

    Intel Processor Serial Number

    The serial number of Intel processors allows for Intel procucts to be identified, permitting faster identification, and delivery of materials.

    Next: The tests