(By Rice-Dawg)

<-- Continued previously...

THE HYPE AND HOOPLA OF THE VOODOO 3 AND PENTIUM III
By: Rice-Dawg

--> Intel Pentium III 450 MHz / 500 MHz

- Introduction

_____This baby needs absolutely no introduction. While some may be strangers of 3D acceleration, all are close friends with the Intel Pentium processors. When Intel shed the old 386/486 skins off of their backs and introduced the Pentium, it revolutionized the computer chip industry. All of the sudden, 66 MHz computers became clunky old, as the Pentium chip continued to escalate in speed. Two years ago, Intel introduced the Pentium II, which has since became the most successful product line in Intel history. The era will end tomorrow, Feb. 28th, as their new flagship, the Pentium III, will take over where the Pentium II 450 MHz has left off. Pentium III 450 MHz and the 500 MHz will start the trend, as it advances onto 600 MHz and beyond.

- The Juicy Meat

_____I'm going to come flat out with it, shock value and all. If you're looking to buy a Pentium III processor right now, DON'T!! Resist all of Intel's marketing strategies! Why? Let me explain:

_____The Pentium III processor is only different from the Pentium II processor in one aspect... the SSE instructions. Pentium III uses the exact same architecture as the Penitum II does, with the addition of the critical SSE instructions. SSE stands for "Streaming SIMD Extensions", with SIMD standing for "Single Instruction Multiple Data". All this Pentium III crap was also code-named "Katmai" before coming out with the label, and some of my closer buddies may have heard me rant about my new computer being the Katmai before.

_____"Rice, I still have no idea what the heck are you trying to get at!"... okay, no problem, here we go. As I said before, the PIII is the same as the PII except for the SSE. For the power of SSE to be exploited, a software driver or program has to utilize it, or take advantage of existing SSE instructions. As of right now, no programs support SSE... zero, zip, zilch, nadda. That means, for those of you lucky bastards that own a PII-450MHz, upgrading to a PIII-450MHz equals wasting money. Of course, if you upgrade to a PIII-500MHz, you gain an extra 50MHz, which is definitely not worth $600 bucks!

_____Before I bash Intel completely, I'd like to point out that, if exploited, SSE can be a very valuable asset, if used correctly... games, to be exact. Why else would anybody upgrade to a Pentium III? By the way, if you are a freak that never plays games and only uses hard-core Office products and Word Processing/Database crap, get yourself a new AMD K6-3, because it's the best (even over Intel) in integer calculations (which is what Office products utilize bigtime). Anyways, back to the point. With SSE enabled, games can see as much as a 25% to 50% increase in frame-rate/speed... definitely something that all gamers desire. Right now, some known future products that will support SSE include Quake 3: Arena, Unreal Tournament, Wargasm, etc... Only time can tell of the success of SSE.

_____SSE is not a new concept developed by Intel. As a matter of fact, AMD created their own SIMD patch addon, known in general as 3DNow!, which incorporates SIMD into the processing of programs. If you see a game that is 3DNow! enhanced, then it definitely makes the game faster and smoother. Keep in mind 3DNow! is only AMD, so if you have an Intel Pentium, don't bother with 3DNow!

_____Remember MMX? Well, it still exists in all Pentium II chips, and in itself, MMX also uses SIMD! MMX maximizes the integer calculations, using SIMD, but really doesn't help gamers much because games generally uses the Floating Point Unit (FPU) calculations pretty intensly. SSE is different from MMX in the fact that the SIMD in SSE also maximizes the FPU calculations as well as the integer calculations. BUT, as I stated before, the program has to be made to take advantage of SSE.

- Conclusion

_____You're bored, right? Admit it, because even I am, after reading over what I just wrote. Alright, let me get to the point. You already know that if you buy a Pentium III right now, I'm going to go over to your house and kill off your dog and set your bathroom on fire. Because...

1. Nothing out there supports the Pentium III yet. The only difference between the PII and the PIII is the speed, and 50 extra MHz of the PIII-500MHz doesn't justify the steep pricing of the PIII.

2. Might as well get a cheaper PII-450MHz, or an even cheaper Celeron 400MHz and over-clock it to 500 MHz. Run a benchmarking program, and I'll bet you 5 bucks that the over-clocked celeron can beat out the PIII-500MHz (assuming that the program isn't SSE enhanced, or else PIII will smoke the celeron). That's due to the Celeron having an on-die L2 cache... etc... blah blah... (*insert technical junk here*)

3. Too expensive!!! EXPENSIVE, I SAY, DAMMIT!!!!

_____"But Rice! I have a cheap-ass 386! I can't even play Minesweeper on Windows 95 with it! I need to upgrade now! What should I do?!"... have no fear, because I am here to advise you. If you're computer hardware savvy, and like to play around with chips and slots, buy a Celeron 400, along with a BX-based 100MHz FSB Motherboard, and overclock it to 500 MHz. It won't cost more than $1500 for a brand new system, monitor and all. For those of you that hate tinkering with screws and drives, but lust for the speed of a power-computer, go to a local dealership and ask for a Pentium II 400MHz computer. Try not to buy from one of those big corps. such as Gateway or Packard Bell, because they like to do stupid stuff like "locking" your RAM slots to prevent future upgrading (unless you send it to them as they charge you blistering prices for a supposedly-cheap upgrade). So why 400 instead of 450? Because it's a hundred and fifty bucks cheaper, and you don't lose much in performance wise.

_____Oh, and of course, there is the issue of the serial numbering label on the Pentium III chips. There's this big hoopla surrounding the serial numbers, which is supposed to uniquely identify the owners of the PIII's. The uproar is from these privacy groups that argue the serial #'s can lead to all these security problems. Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about that, because Intel has turned it off by default, and the only way to turn it back on would be to play with the BIOS or use their not-yet released software. Even then, you'll still have to turn your computer off before turning it back on again for it to be effective, which defeats online exploitation. So basically, don't worry too much about it.

_____What holds for the Pentium III in the future? Code-named shmuck like Coppermine and Camino are the next hot things, and the Merced is reportedly being developed as high-end processing power in conjunction to the Xeon. Hehe... I wonder who comes up with these names anyhow!

Final word: Steer clear of the new Pentium III's... for now. Look for the good stuff to come out at the end of Summer, or middle of Fall.