Re: [OT] How fast is a PIII?
The PII is built on an older process than the PIII. The PIII-450 is
the slowest member of the PIII family, while the PII-450 is the
fastest. As a result yields on the PII450 are much smaller than that
of the PIII450. This will explain why the PII-450 costs a little
more than the PIII-450. The more modern (read smaller geometry) chips
run cooler and use less power than the older ones. Also the PIII has
the 'big brother' feature of the cpu-serial number id. Perhaps the
fact that the PII does NOT have this makes it more desirable? (IMHO
this is bullshit, since if you have a lan card in your system you
ALREADY have a unique id in your computer, your mac address!)
Bottom line is that the PII is on the endangered species list, all of
the 66mhz fsb versions are no longer being made, the 350,400, and 450
will be discontinued by the end of the year. The PIII will be the
upper end for desktops, the celeron the lower end. Celeron cpus with a
100 mhz fsb will be out when the PIII switches to the 133 fsb later
this year or early next. (This is the so called 'copper mine' chip,
which may or may not abandon the slot 1 format and come in a new pga
package. Coppermine will release in a 600 mhz version first, faster
ones latter. The PIII 600 will be the last of the current PIII chips).
The PIII streaming MMX instructions were designed for realtime video.
Don't know if the gcc compiler supports them yet, or if any mpeg or
x-driver software can use them yet. That's where the PIII will make a
real difference.
Is the PIII450 slower than the PII450? Maybe, but I would guess that
the motherboard in use could make more of a difference. There are two
flavors of BX chipset MB's. The BX-2 boards use a newer version of the
chipset that is designed to support the PIII. The older bx boards will
work with the PIII, but were designed for the PII. The result is that
a PIII will run faster on a BX-2 MB than on a BX MB. You might not
notice any difference except on the fastest PIII's though.
===
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