Processor cores

Processor cores

Similarly to the Pentium II it superseded, the Pentium III was also accompanied by the Celeron brand for lower-end CPU versions, and the Xeon for high-end (server and workstation) derivatives. The Pentium III was eventually superseded by the Pentium 4, but its Tualatin core also served as the basis for the Pentium M CPUs, which used many ideas from the Intel P6 microarchitecture. Subsequently, it was the P-M microarchitecture of Pentium M branded CPUs, and not the NetBurst found in Pentium 4 processors, that formed the basis for Intel's energy-efficient Intel Core microarchitecture of CPUs branded Core 2, Pentium Dual-Core, Celeron (Core), and Xeon.

The Pentium III was the first Intel processor to break 1 GFLOPS, with a theoretical performance of 2 GFLOPS.
Intel Pentium III processor family
Original Logo New Logo Desktop
Code-named Core Date released
Pentium III logo Pentium III-M Logo Katmai
Coppermine
Coppermine-T
Tualatin (250nm)
(180nm)
(180nm)
(130nm) May 1999
Mar 2000
Aug 2000
Apr 2001
List of Intel Pentium III microprocessors

Katmai
A Pentium III Katmai SECC2 cartridge with Heatsink Removed

The first Pentium III variant was the Katmai (Intel product code 80525). It was very similar to the Deschutes Pentium II and used a 0.25 µm CMOS semiconductor process). The only differences were the introduction of SSE and an improved L1 cache controller - the L2 cache controller was left unchanged, as it would be completely redesigned for Coppermine anyway - which was responsible for the minor performance improvements over the "Deschutes" Pentium IIs. 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 at 533 & 600 MHz respectively. The 'B' suffix indicated that it featured a 133 MHz FSB, instead of the 100 MHz FSB of previous models.

The Katmai used the same slot based design as the Pentium II but with the newer SECC2 cartridge 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 OEMs.

A notable stepping 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 was capable of running at 600 MHz.

Coppermine
A Pentium III Coppermine 866Mhz with thermal paste left.

The second version, Coppermine, or 80526, had an integrated full-speed 256 KiB L2 cache with lower latency and a 256-bit bus, named Advanced Transfer Cache by Intel, which improved performance significantly 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% increased performance in some applications where these stalls happened.

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 (1 GHz). Both 100 MHz FSB and 133 MHz FSB models were made. 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 terms of overall performance, the Coppermine held a slight advantage over the Athlons 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 eventual speeds of 1.4GHz.

A 1.13 GHz version was released in mid-2000 but famously recalled after a collaboration between HardOCP and Tom's Hardware 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, aggressive cooling, additional 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's Xbox game console uses a variant of the Pentium III/Mobile Celeron family in a Micro-PGA2 form factor. The sSpec designator of the chips is SL5Sx, which makes it most similar to the Mobile Celeron Coppermine-128 processor. It shares with the Coppermine-128 Celeron its 133 MT/s front side bus, 128 KiB L2 cache, and 180 nm fabrication process.

Although the codename Coppermine makes it sound as if the chip was fabricated with copper interconnects, Coppermine in fact used aluminum interconnects.

In late model Coppermine CPUs, Intel implemented a integrated heat spreader to improve contact between the die and the heatsink. The integrated heat spreader itself didn't improve thermal conductivity, since it added another layer of metal and thermal paste between the die and the heatsink, but it greatly assisted in holding the heatsink flat against the die. Earlier Coppermine CPUs without the integrated heat spreader made heatsink mounting challenging. If the heatsink was not flat against the die, heat transfer efficiency was crippled. Some heatsink makers also began using pads on their coolers, similar to what AMD did with the "Thunderbird" Athlon. The enthusiast community went so far as to create shims to assist in maintaining a flat interface.

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 Coppermines with the cD0-Stepping and modified them so that they worked with low voltage system bus operation (GTL) at 1.25 V AGTL as well as normal 1.5 V AGTL+ signal levels, and would auto detect differential or single-ended clocking. This modification made them compatible to the latest generation Socket-370 boards supporting FC-PGA2 packaged CPUs while maintaining combatility to the older FC-PGA boards. The Coppermine-T was also two way symmetrical multiprocessing capable but only in FC-PGA2 boards.

The Coppermine-T is the only Coppermine to feature an integrated heat spreader. 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 (see http://www.cpu-world.com/Cores/Coppermine-T.html ).

Tualatin

The third revision, Tualatin (80530), was a trial for Intel's new 0.13 µm process. 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. 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 servers, especially those where power consumption mattered, i.e., thin blade servers.

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 a lot 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.

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 very last models of Coppermine Pentium IIIs also featured the IHS — the heatspreader is actually what distinguishes the FC-PGA2 package from the FC-PGA — both are for Socket 370 motherboards.

Before the addition of the heatspreader, it was sometimes difficult to install a heatsink on a Pentium III. One had to be careful to not 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 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 and Tualatin River in Oregon, where Intel has large manufacturing and design facilities.