 SU.HARDW.PC.CPU (2:5020/299)  SU.HARDW.PC.CPU 
 From : Alexander Pivovar                   2:5020/677.3    Thu 01 May 97 11:27
 Subj :   ⢥ 㤠:)

C⫨  ⥡, All!

Intel  ।

=== Cut ===


---------------------------------------------------------------------------

              The Empire Strikes Back - Intel's Pentium II CPU

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Exactly four weeks ago AMD unveiled their new K6 CPU. On the launch day AMD
was even proudly presenting a K6 at 266 MHz and the whole word was
applauding to this new powerful competitor of the 'almost-monopolist'
Intel. The performance of the K6 is very promising and for the first time
the PC users in the world were directing their interest away from Intel to
AMD. Now since the first four weeks are over, we had to learn that there
still isn't any K6 at 266 MHz available at all. Even in the US people are
struggling to get a K6 233 and in Europe and the rest of the world you
hardly get any K6 CPUs at all.

Now since my review of the first Klamath CPU from the beginning of this
year and all the fuss that happened after its release, Intel hasn't been
lazy. They knew that they had to come out with something really decent,
because the first impressions of the Klamath/Pentium II CPU weren't exactly
impressive, they got a lot of bad press and the K6's performance was good
enough to get a lot of attention as well. The core of the Pentium II is
still not very much different from its predecessor Pentium Pro, it doesn't
include any level one cache anymore and so a considerable performance boost
over the Pentium Pro is only achievable through higher clock rates. Since
my first Klamath review Intel has certainly improved the chip itself, but
also increased the clock rates up to now 300 MHz.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just in case you haven't read my first Klamath review yet, here again the
facts about the Pentium II:

Facts about the Intel Pentium II:

   * The Pentium II doesn't include any second level cache anymore as its
     predecessor Pentium Pro. This is due to production costs, since in
     case only one die in the Pentium Pro is not functioning in the
     post-bonding CPU tests, the whole CPU has to be thrown away. The chips
     can only be tested after the bonding and at this stage it's too late
     to use one of the two components anymore.
     External L2 cache means less L2 cache performance. The Pentium Pro
     runs its internal L2 cache at clock speed, the Pentium II will run its
     external special BSRAM (burst static RAM) cache only at half the clock
     speed, which makes this cache considerably slower than in the Pentium
     Pro.
   * The external bus speed of the Pentium II will still be only 66 MHz,
     the bus speed we know well from Pentium and Pentium Pro CPUs.
     Obviously Intel doesn't seem to plan higher bus speeds before the
     release of the next CPU, the Deschutes.
   * The Pentium II will come as a cartridge for the new so called 'Slot
     One' motherboard slot. We all expected it anyway - we will need new
     motherboards for the Pentium II. On this slot card there will be the
     L2 cache as well, which is planned to be 512 and later also 256 kB in
     size. The old Pentium Pro can also be used on these new boards, via a
     special CPU card with a Socket 8. This CPU card can be build by
     motherboard manufacturers, but they'll have to pay a considerable
     price for each card, since the 'Slot One' is patented by Intel.
   * The CPU speed of the first Pentium II will be 233, 266 and 300 MHz .
     This makes a multiplier of 3.5 x 66 MHz for the 233 version, with a
     multiplier of x1.75 for the L2 cache, a 4 x 66 MHz for the 266 MHz
     version, with a L2 cache multiplier of x2 and so on. On some
     exhibitions Intel has shown a Pentium II 400 MHz (water cooled), but
     it's unclear at which speed the level 2 cache was running then.
   * The Pentium II ('Klamath') will now have segment register caches,
     which will improve the poor 16 bit performance known from the Pentium
     Pro. Hence the Pentium II will run 16 bit programs and mixed 16/32 bit
     OSs like Windows95 somewhat faster than the Pentium Pro.
   * The first level cache of the Pentium II will be increased to 16 kB
     data and 16 kB instruction cache. The Pentium II will have more write
     buffers as well. These two things increase the L1 cache performance of
     the Pentium II and help reduce the Pentium II's disadvantage of its
     slower external L2 cache.
   * Due to less production costs, the Pentium II ('Klamath') could be even
     cheaper than the Pentium Pro. However, we'll have to wait for its
     release to be sure about this. I personally doubt this! Some sources
     say that the production costs of the Pentium II are only 25% of the
     costs to produce a Pentium Pro.
   * We might get the same trouble with the Pentium II availability as we
     currently have with the K6. Sources say that Intel currently doesn't
     have any interest in cutting down the (considerably high) prices of
     the Pentium II (rumors say that the Pentium II 300 will cost $2000
     !!), because they are completely unable to satisfy the market with
     enough Pentium II CPUs.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Performance of the Intel Pentium II

The Pentium II has now to compete against two CPUs. It's older brother the
Pentium Pro, which has the advantage of an internal 2nd level cache and the
new AMD K6, which has been showing to be a worthy competitor against even
the high end Intel CPUs.

The Windows 95 Performance of the Pentium II



 WINDOWS 95  Pentium  Pentium  Pentium  Pentium  K6    K6   K6    Pentium
             II 300   II 266   II 233   Pro 200  233   200  166   MMX 200

 Business
 Winstone    64.5     60.9     57.8     52.4     55.3  51.9 48.6  50.2
 97

 Highend
 Winstone    31.7     29.8     27.8     24.8     23.6  22.2 20.1  22.4
 97

 Business
 Winmark 97  124      107      103      84.2     98.1  89.7 78.5  91.4

 WinQuake
 1.09
 Timedemo2   32.7     30.0     27.0     23.4     15.5  13.9 12.6  15.9
 640x480

The Windows 95 performance is the only sector where the lead of the Pentium
II isn't that all clear. The Pentium II 233 is only a little bit faster
than the AMD K6 233, but the faster clock speeds are still far above any
competition. However here in this sector the Pentium II could be defeated
by a improved K6 as well as the upcoming M2. It will stay interesting for
Windows 95 users.

The Windows NT Performance of the Pentium II

Windows NT is like all the other 32 bit operating systems the way to go for
the future. Memphis includes already quite a bit more NT code than Windows
95 and sooner or later 32 bit software and operating systems will be the
standard. Hence the performance under a 32 bit OS like Windows NT is most
important.

 WINDOWS    Pentium  Pentium  Pentium  Pentium  K6    K6    K6    Pentium
 NT 4.0     II 300   II 266   II 233   Pro 200  233   200   166   MMX 200

 Business
 Winstone   86.5     83.4     78.4     71.2     71    67.6  63.3  64.3
 97

 Highend
 Winstone   37.7     35.3     32.2     29.2     26.9  24.5  22    24.2
 97

 Business
 Winmark    139      128      117      104      104   93.5  83.6  87.5
 97

 Winbench
 97 CPU     600      533      466      360      465   414   362   423
 Mark16

 Winbench
 97 CPU     815      722      632      554      559   513   466   420
 Mark32

You can see that 32 bit OS environments are exactly what the Pentium II
loves, just as well as his predecessor and close brother Pentium Pro. The
distance to the K6 is vast and so you won't have to have many doubts that
the Pentium II is the CPU for hard working 32 bit servers or workstations,
unless you want to have a look at Digital's Alpha CPU. You can see that
Intel has particularly improved the Pentium II's 32 bit performance over
the fairly poor results of the first look Klamath from the beginning of
this year. Under Windows NT, the Pentium II will give AMD quite a bit of a
headache, because the K6 will still have a good way to go if it wants to
compete to the Pentium II under this kind of OS. Even if you overclock a K6
to 250 MHz, you can't even reach the NT performance of the Pentium II 233.

The High End Winstone shows that the Pentium II is also the way to go in
case you need lots of CAD or rendering power. This is so far one of the
weaknesses of the K6, as well as its lack of multi CPU support. It's a
matter of fact that the real high end user will have to go for a Pentium II
system. Intel's plans have worked out another time.

The DOS Performance of the Pentium II

 DOS         Pentium  Pentium  Pentium  Pentium  K6    K6   K6    Pentium
             II 300   II 266   II 233   Pro 200  233   200  166   MMX 200

 Quake 1.06
 Timedemo2   29.9     27.6     25.0     21.9     14.2  13.4 12.2  15.7
 640x480

 PC Player
 DOS 3D      44       39.8     35.3     31       26.4  25.1 23.1  23.1
 Benchmark

 3DBench     500      500      500      333.3    250   250  200   166.6

 Chris
 Dial's 3D   82.5     75.2     67.5     49.6     38.4  35.3 31.7  40.7
 Bench

The DOS Gaming Performance of the Pentium II is simply earth shattering.
I'm sure that nobody is still thinking I'm any kind of close to Intel, but
I have to say what's the truth here. Looking at the Quake results makes you
almost feel sorry for AMD, since the results of the Pentium II are more
than double in Quake as well as in Chris Dial's 3D Bench - both heavily FPU
depending benchmarks. Even the almost 'FPU-free' and hence most realistic
benchmark of the PC Player Magazine shows that for real game junkies
there's no other CPU than the Pentium II.

The MMX Performance of the Pentium II

 Intel Media  Pentium Pentium  Pentium  Pentium                        Pentium
 Benchmark    II 300  II 266   II 233   Pro 200 K6 233  K6 200 K6 166  MMX 200

 Overall      392.28  357.99   312.83   194     246.52  214.46 181.58  246.57

 Video        341.84  315.33   276.61   160.22  308.54  269.14 228.71  252.07

 Image
 Processing   1250.27 1148.14  1051.64  219.7   697.16  605.07 527.55  684.98

 3D           312.14  283.34   247.49   211.55  141.07  122.15 102.77  159.78

 Audio        510.09  459.95   395.88   232.32  273.22  238.11 200.79  326.58

As you can see, the Pentium II has the lead here as well. The only
exception where AMD's K6 is looking pretty good is the video sector. Here
the K6 233 comes pretty close to the Pentium II 266. This is interesting
for people who are e.g. looking into DVD videos or any other video usage of
the PC. The image processing is a big strength of the Pentium II and the 3D
graphics, which mainly depend on the FPU performance rather than MMX (as
you can see at the MMX-less Pentium Pro result) are also very strong in the
Pentium II.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Summary

The world is back to normal. Intel's managers can sleep quietly again. The
Pentium II shows that Intel is still the leader in the CPU market. The
Pentium II 233 is already quite powerful, but at 300 MHz, the Pentium II
blows away every competitor and this although it's still using the good old
66 MHz bus speed. It seems as if there's quite a bit to expect still, since
this test was run on a board with the well known 440FX Natoma chipset. AGP
and SDRAM support will speed up the Pentium II systems even more and there
will soon be the successor called 'Deschutes', which is meant to run at 100
MHz bus speed and even higher clock speeds than 300 MHz. However my
internal sources within AMD tell me that there is still a whole lot to
expect from the K6, actually much more than anybody would think of. Hence I
doubt that Intel will have any time to rest now, but they shouldn't anyway,
in case they are following their CEO Andy Grove's guide line: The paranoid
will survive.

The question is now, what will happen in the computer market? Will the
Pentium II be a success? I'm not able to look into the future, but I have
quite a few doubts that the Pentium II will have a jump start. Its price is
considerably higher than any other CPU and you have to add the price of a
new motherboard that's more expensive than a Socket 7 board as well. The
Deschutes is meant to be released in about 9 months time and I haven't come
across any boards with the eagerly awaited 440LX or even 440BX chipset
anywhere yet. I wonder if it is smart to pay $400 for a Pentium II board
with the good old 440FX chipset, that won't support AGP or SDRAM. If the
440LX chipset will come out soon is still unclear, but who is keen on
spending another $400 in a few months time, to be able to take advantage of
the AGP and SDRAM? This is the reason why I think that it will take a while
until the Pentium II will become really popular. Until then, AMD has enough
time to sell its K6 and improve that chip so that it's powerful enough to
take on the Pentium II even at 300 MHz level. It could even be that the AMD
chipset with AGP support will come out earlier than the Intel 440LX
chipset. At this stage the K6 could be much more powerful than it's now and
then a lot of people will be very unhappy with their freshly achieved
Pentium II boards and CPUs.

Anyhow, we will be much smarter in a few months time. For now one thing is
clear: The Pentium II has won back the crown of the fastest CPU in PC
systems. So if you want to have a top notch system now, you can enjoy
spending a whole lot of money by getting a Pentium II system.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

         This page has been visited 1433 times since April 30, 1997
=== Cut ===



                                   With Best Regards, Alexander Pivovar
2:5020/677.3 /554.14@FIDONET.ORG 963:1/466@VIWANET.RU

--- GoldED/386 3.00.Alpha2+
 * Origin: Me@Home (2:5020/677.3)


