Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/804
Intel Pentium III 1.2GHz 0.13-micron Tualatin: The Celeron of the Future
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 30, 2001 3:30 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
It was almost exactly one year ago that Intel released the first Pentium III running at 1.13GHz. Through the diligent efforts of Dr. Thomas Pabst of Tom’s Hardware and the cooperation of AnandTech and Kyle Bennett from HardOCP, it was discovered that the 1.13GHz Pentium III processor was not suited for release. The three retail CPUs that were sent out to all three of the aforementioned websites were unable to run the most grueling tests without failing to complete at least one of them. This eventually led to Intel’s recall of the less than 200 1.13GHz Pentium III CPUs that made it into the hands of customers.
Since then, Intel hasn’t even attempted to re-launch the 1.13GHz Pentium III. What was so difficult about hitting 1.13GHz was that the Pentium III’s architecture, combined with the 0.18-micron manufacturing process that it was produced under, was unable to run reliably at 1.13GHz. The only ways for Intel to get around that limitation would be to tweak the architecture of the processor further (akin to AMD’s Athlon 4 vs. Athlon cores) or to decrease the circuit size of the processor, thus paving the way for higher clock speeds. With the Pentium III destined to be replaced by the Pentium 4, the only sensible thing to do was to move the Pentium III to a smaller circuit size, courtesy of Intel’s 0.13-micron manufacturing process.
Historically, Intel has initially introduced new CPU technologies and manufacturing processes in very low volume markets, and then later, after perfecting the technologies, adapted them to more mass production segments. This translates into most new technology being introduced first in mobile or server segments and later filtering down to the desktop market. Case in point would be Intel’s 0.13-micron process which made its debut in the lowest volume market segment that Intel could possibly produce a x86 CPU for: the mobile Pentium III market.
The 0.13-micron mobile Pentium III is known as the Pentium III-M and it is
based off of Intel’s new 0.13-micron Pentium III core known internally as the
Tualatin. The Tualatin core replaces the 0.18-micron
Although primarily intended for the mobile market, Intel did make two other versions of the 0.13-micron Tualatin core; one intended for the desktop market and one for the server market. The desktop version is still called the Pentium III while the server part goes by the name Pentium III-S. In order to distinguish the 1.13GHz Tualatin from the failed 1.13GHz Pentium III, it is labeled as a Pentium III 1.13A.
What we’re taking a look at today is the desktop Tualatin processor. This CPU carries a good deal of significance not only because it is Intel’s first 0.13-micron desktop processor, but also because this core will eventually be the basis for the next-generation Celeron.
More than just a die shrink
The 0.13-micron Pentium III has specs that are virtually identical to the 0.18-micron
On the compatibility side, the Tualatin requires a new chipset because of its use of a lower voltage clocking specification. Since the release of the Pentium Pro, all Intel P6 processors have used Gunning Transceiver Logic+ (GTL+) technology for their FSB. The GTL+ implementation actually changed slightly from the Pentium Pro to the Pentium II/III, and thus the latter implement what is known as the Assisted Gunning Transceiver Logic+ (AGTL+) bus. Both of these FSBs use 1.5V signaling; however, the Tualatin uses a lower voltage bus that runs at 1.25V. More specifically, the Tualatin uses AGTL signaling that unfortunately requires a new chipset with support for 1.25V AGTL signaling instead of 1.5V AGTL+ signaling. The Tualatin also supports single-ended and differential bus clocking schemes (whereas the Coppermine Pentium III only used single-ended clocking). It is unclear whether the current 1.13GHz and 1.2GHz Tualatins use single-ended or differential clocking, but the main purpose for using a differential bus clocking scheme is to reduce Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) associated with higher clock speeds. The Pentium 4 also uses differential clocking.
Because it is manufactured on a smaller process, the Tualatin requires much
less power than the
In terms of performance, the Tualatin offers one advantage over the
Unfortunately, the Tualatin’s DPL is not as useful as similar functions in the Athlon 4 and Pentium 4 because the Tualatin is still stuck with only a 133MHz FSB. The 64-bit AGTL FSB is only capable of a peak theoretical maximum of 1.06GB/s of bandwidth, while the Athlon 4 and Pentium 4 have 2.1GB/s and 3.2GB/s of FSB bandwidth, respectively. The effectiveness of the Tualatin’s DPL is thus reduced because it does not have as much FSB bandwidth, but that also means that at higher overclocked FSB frequencies, the Tualatin will benefit much more than the Coppermine Pentium III did.
Other than those two changes, the desktop Tualatin-based Pentium III carries
an identical feature set to the
Cool Runnings: The Intel Bobsled Team
The Pentium III 1.2GHz processor runs off of a 1.475V core voltage, which is
16% lower than the 1.75V core voltage of the
At 1.2GHz the Tualatin core produces 29W of heat, which is less than the 33W the 0.18-micron Pentium III dissipates at 1GHz. Most of today’s higher speed 0.18-micron processors produce in the 50W+ area. The cooling requirements reflect this cool operating capability.
Click to Enlarge
From Left to Right - Pentium 4, Pentium III (Tualatin), Pentium III (Coppermine)
In order to distribute the heat generated from the small 0.13-micron core over the base of the CPU’s heatsink, Intel outfitted the new Pentium III with an Integrated Heat Spreader (IHS). This is known as the FC-PGA2 packaging; previous Socket-370 Pentium IIIs used a regular FC-PGA package.
The Pentium III’s IHS is a lot like the IHS that is present on the Pentium 4, the only difference being that it is heavier because of the smaller Pentium III core. This is a page from Intel’s book that AMD definitely needs to have a look at. The 0.18-micron Athlon (Thunderbird core) should have debuted with an IHS since entirely too many users have cracked their Athlon cores by improperly mounting a heatsink.
The 0.13-micron Athlons due out later this year had better feature some sort of an IHS otherwise there are going to be many more cracked cores out there, especially with a smaller, more fragile 0.13-micron core.
Putting the die savings to use: The Pentium III-S
One of the biggest benefits of moving to a smaller circuit size - in this case moving from 0.18 down to 0.13-micron - is that the die size of the processor core is cut virtually in half. This opens up the potential for additional items to be introduced to the processor core, such as data prefetch logic or, in the case of the server version of the Tualatin based Pentium III, more L2 cache.
The Pentium III-S uses the same Tualatin core as the desktop Pentium III, but includes a larger 512KB L2 cache for server applications. The larger L2 cache comes in handy in database serving applications among other things. While we couldn’t get a Pentium III-S in time for this review, we will attempt to provide as much information about the processor as possible.
The architecture of the Pentium III-S should be identical to the Pentium III (Tualatin), with the exception of the larger L2 cache. Both L2 caches are 8-way set associative, so the Pentium III-S is indeed a different die. There has been speculation that the Pentium III-S has a wider L2 cache bus and/or is capable of sustaining higher bandwidth to the L2 cache, but we have yet to confirm this.
The Pentium III-S also requires a compliant chipset/motherboard as well as proper BIOS support.
The future of the Tualatin
We’ve mentioned countless times that the Pentium III is a dying breed, soon to be replaced entirely by the Pentium 4 in the desktop market (the Pentium 4 is too big and too hot for a mobile CPU). In fact, Intel doesn’t really want people buying the desktop Tualatin. At the end of August 2001 the 1.2GHz Pentium III (Tualatin) will be priced around $260 in 1,000 unit quantities; at the same time, the 1.5GHz Pentium 4 will be priced at $130 in similar quantities. The extremely costly nature of the Tualatin-based Pentium III will keep it out of the hands of many, since for the same price you can easily get a Socket-A motherboard and a CPU. The desktop Pentium III will most likely max out at 1.2GHz, with the only Tualatin based parts being the 1.13GHz and 1.2GHz CPUs.
However, the real goal of bringing the Tualatin core to the desktop market is to pave the way for the true home of the Tualatin, the Celeron. By the end of this year Intel is expected to debut the new Celeron at 1.2GHz. Over the past two years the Celeron has lost a great deal of its competitive edge. Only recently did it gain the use of the 100MHz FSB, and its 4-way set associative L2 cache held its performance back even more. The AMD Duron, currently priced at extremely affordable levels, is clearly a superior choice in terms of price and performance. A Tualatin-based Celeron could turn things around for the price/performance value of Intel’s entry-level processors.
In continuing the tradition of the Celeron, it seems as if Intel is going to cripple the Tualatin core much more than necessary in order to clearly distinguish it from the flagship Pentium 4. The current roadmaps state that the 0.13-micron Tualatin-based Celeron will only feature a 128KB L2 cache (potentially only 4-way set associative, but, hopefully, it will feature an 8-way set associative L2 cache, which would result in a much higher hit rate), and it will still only officially use the 100MHz FSB. These two limitations will significantly hamper the performance of the Celeron.
First of all, with only 128KB L2 cache, the Celeron will definitely have a hard time performing well in a lot of the new applications being released. As we’ve already proven, Windows XP eats up a considerable amount of performance over Windows 2000, as do the XP versions of popular applications (for example, Office XP vs. Office 2000). These applications do have larger footprints that may easily exceed the Celeron’s 128KB L2 cache, giving users even more incentive to upgrade to the Pentium 4, which will eventually be given a full 512KB L2 cache by the end of this year.
Secondly, with only 800MB/s of FSB bandwidth (100MHz FSB), the Tualatin’s Data Prefetch Logic will be even less useful than it is on the Pentium III. Remember, the less bandwidth that the DPL can use to prefetch data, the less it can prefetch into L2 cache. This brings up another limitation of the 128KB L2 cache; there is less room for prefetched data courtesy of the DPL.
If Intel truly wants the Celeron to be competitive with the Duron (and the potential of a Duron MP processor), they need to release a Celeron with the Pentium III’s Tualatin core. A Tualatin-based Celeron with an 8-way set associative 256KB L2 cache, and a 133MHz FSB could give the Duron a run for its money. The only benefit of a 128KB L2 cache Tualatin-based Celeron would be the low manufacturing costs, courtesy of an extremely small 0.13-micron die size.
Chipset & Motherboard Support
As we mentioned earlier because of the new VRM and bus requirements the Tualatin-based Pentium IIIs require a new motherboard and also a new chipset as well. In order to meet these needs, Intel has released a revision of the i815 chipset with support for the Tualatin core, known as the i815 B-Step. The 815 B-Step is actually based off of the 815EP core in that it features no integrated video.
VIA also has Tualatin support in a couple of their chipsets: the Apollo Pro 133T and the Pro 266T. These chipsets are identical to the Pro 133A and Pro 266 except that they support the Tualatin based Pentium IIIs.
ASUS' Universal Motherboard (TUSL2-C) works with all Socket-370 processors
The upcoming Celerons based on the modified Tualatin core will also require a motherboard based on one of these chipsets.
Overclocking
You can probably guess that the 0.13-micron manufacturing process opens up the potential for the Pentium III to be a great overclocker. Our retail 1.2GHz processor was able to hit 1.44GHz (9 x 160MHz), unfortunately the board we tested on (ASUS TUSL2-C) would not allow voltage adjustments thus preventing us from getting a reliable set of benchmarks at 1.44GHz.
With voltage adjustments you should be able to hit 1.35 – 1.5GHz pretty easily with the 1.2GHz Pentium III.
The Test
Windows 2000 Test System |
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Hardware |
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CPU(s) |
Intel Pentium III
1.2GHz |
Intel
Pentium 4 1.8GHz Intel Pentium 4 1.5GHz Intel Pentium 4 1.3GHz |
AMD
Athlon-C "Thunderbird" 1.4GHz AMD Athlon-C "Thunderbird" 1.2GHz AMD Athlon MP "Palomino" 1.2GHz |
||||
Motherboard(s) | ASUS TUSL2-C | MSI 850 Pro2 | MSI K7T266 Pro | ||||
Memory |
256MB PC133 Corsair SDRAM (Micron -7E CAS2) |
256MB
PC800 Samsung RDRAM
|
256MB
PC2400 Corsair DDR SDRAM (CAS 2)
|
||||
Hard Drive |
IBM Deskstar 30GB 75GXP 7200 RPM Ultra ATA/100 |
||||||
CDROM |
Phillips 48X |
||||||
Video Card(s) |
NVIDIA GeForce3 64MB DDR (default clock - 200/230 DDR) |
||||||
Ethernet |
Linksys LNE100TX 100Mbit PCI Ethernet Adapter |
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Software |
|||||||
Operating System |
Windows 2000 Professional Service Pack 2 |
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Video Drivers |
|
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Benchmarking Applications |
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Gaming |
Quake
III Arena v1.29f demo four |
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Productivity |
Winstone 2001 |
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3D Graphics |
3D
Studio MAX R4
|
Content Creation/Office Performance - Winstone 2001
Winstone 2001 is highly bound by disk performance and it is a testament to the need for high performance disk drives in today’s desktop workstations. Remember that although we often complain about the difference between a memory subsystem that transfers at 2100MB/s vs. 1000MB/s we rarely realize that your disk subsystem isn’t capable of even transferring at over 40MB/s.
The benchmark is split into two sections: Content Creation and Business Winstone 2001. Content Creation focuses more on the manipulation and creation of images, web pages, etc… (e.g. for hardcore Photoshop/Dreamweaver users) while Business Winstone focuses on word processing, spreadsheet and presentation applications, etc… (e.g. for MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint users). All of these tests are conducted in a multitasking environment, making the benchmark a good representation of real world performance.
In Content Creation Winstone 2001 the Pentium III at 1.2GHz is about the same speed as the Athlon 1.2GHz and only slightly slower than the Athlon MP (Athlon 4 core) 1.2GHz. This is to be expected since the Pentium III has always been pretty close to the Athlon in business/content creation performance because of its increased L2 cache bandwidth. The Athlon still only has a 64-bit L2 cache bus while the Pentium III has a 256-bit L2 cache bus, offering four times the L2 cache bandwidth as the Athlon. Since most of these applications benefit from having a fast L2 cache, the Pentium III can keep up quite well.
The shorter pipeline and ability to process more per clock than a Pentium 4 gives the Pentium III 1.2 a 7% advantage over the Pentium 4 1.5 in these content creation applications.
The cheaper Athlon 1.4GHz processor is still able to outperform it, making the solution not too desirable but you can see the potential for a Tualatin based Celeron quite clearly. The situation would be different had the Tualatin been compatible with current motherboards since it would be a decent upgrade to older Pentium IIIs.
As a contender in Business Winstone 2001, the Tualatin is even more competitive now rivaling the performance of an Athlon 1.4. The only Pentium 4 that is able to outperform this Tualatin is the recently released 1.8GHz part. You can start to see why Intel doesn’t want the Tualatin based Pentium IIIs priced below the Pentium 4.
If Intel wouldn’t cripple the Tualatin core for the upcoming Celeron, it would be a perfect business platform unfortunately it seems like that outcome is an unlikely one.
Content Creation/Office Performance - SYSMark 2001
SYSMark 2001 is much less of a disk-bound benchmark utility than Winstone 2001 because it focuses on more computational intensive uses of some of the same applications. The benchmark again is split into two parts, except this time an overall score is produced from the two as well as individual scores. The Internet Content Creation benchmarks are especially memory bandwidth intensive, while the Office Productivity tests stress memory latency and cache subsystems more than raw bandwidth.
A good portion of the ICC test consists of encoding an avi in Windows Media Encoder, a very memory bandwidth intensive process. This penalizes the Pentium III considerably which is not blessed with as much memory bandwidth as its bigger brother. The Pentium 4’s dual channel RDRAM memory bus provides it with about three times as much memory bandwidth as the Pentium III’s PC133 SDRAM. In spite of this disadvantage the Pentium III still performs reasonably well at 1.2GHz, offering performance equal to that of a single processor Athlon MP 1.2; not to mention outperforming the Pentium 4 1.3GHz.
The Athlon has been a strong performer in the Office Productivity suite and slightly distances itself from the Pentium III. The Tualatin core clearly makes the Pentium III much more competitive than it once was as is evident by the underperforming Pentium III 1GHz.
Without any truly memory bandwidth intensive tests, the Pentium 4 is unable to offer much of an advantage over the Pentium III at such low clock speeds. Remember that the Pentium 4 requires a clock speed advantage to shine courtesy of its NetBurst architecture, with these clock speeds the potential of the architecture is not fully realized thus making the Pentium III much more attractive at a much lower clock speed. Again, Intel really doesn’t want people purchasing this CPU.
The overall performance scene as described by SYSMark places the Pentium III
1.2GHz just under the Athlon 1.2 and above the Pentium 4 1.3. Not too bad,
but it’s just too late to save the Pentium III. By this time next year the
Pentium III will be a distant memory replaced by a Pentium 4 with a little friend
named
3D Rendering Performance - 3D Studio MAX R4.02
We first introduced our 3D Studio MAX R4 test with our 760MP Review. Click here for more information on the test and our test animation.
Up to this point the Pentium III 1.2 has kept pretty close to the Athlon 1.2, however the raw power of the Athlon’s FPU keeps it a good 15% away from the Tualatin newcomer. The Tualatin at 1.2GHz does put the clock speed limited Coppermine core to shame in this test, offering performance equal to the Pentium 4 1.5.
3D Gaming Performance - Quake III Arena 1.29f
Quake III Arena has been with us for a couple of years now and we will continue to use it until id can provide us with another great benchmark. John Carmack is truly one of the best developers in the industry that also happens to have a keen eye for hardware; it’s no wonder that all of id’s games happen to be great benchmarks as well.
For this test we’re using the latest 129f patch and the built in FOUR demo. To run the demo simply enable timedemo mode (“timedemo 1”) and playback demo four (“demo four”)
3D gaming performance has been a strongpoint of the Pentium 4, and it is here that you can see the datedness of the Pentium III core – in spite of the Tualatin’s DPL and higher clock speed.
However as any AnandTech reader is aware, 3D gaming performance is no longer all about CPU/FPU performance. In the days of software renders this may have been true, but today the whole package matters. As the resolution increases, the bottleneck quickly becomes the video card – in this case a GeForce3 – making the difference between two CPUs much less noticeable.
Just a year ago we were marveling at the fact that we could actually own 1GHz CPUs, and today we’re complaining about how they can’t keep up; you’re lucky that not more of your interests mature this quickly.
3D Gaming Performance - AquaMark & DroneZ
The following two tests were only run at 640 x 480 x 32 since we already illustrated what happens to the CPU performance differences when you crank up the resolution and thus increase dependency on the video card.
Quake III Arena is a great benchmark, but facing the facts, its still using
a two year old engine. Next year we’ll be graced (hopefully) by id’s Doom 3
engine but until then, there are a number of other games that are much more
current which make great benchmarks. AquaMark is a benchmark made from the
upcoming DirectX 8 title, AquaNox. As a brand new game engine it gives preference
to technologies seen in the newer CPUs, such as the Tualatin’s DPL. The performance
benefit the Pentium III 1.2 offers over the
Our test bed featured a MSI GeForce3 video card, however in order to use this next game engine as a CPU benchmark we resorted to the game’s built-in GeForce2 “Bump” settings in order to remove the GeForce3’s pixel/vertex shaders as performance bottlenecks. DroneZ is another upcoming game engine this time using the OpenGL API.
The performance of the Pentium III is not nearly as impressive here; the Athlon is easily able to distance itself from the Tualatin allowing the newcomer to only better the Pentium III 1.0GHz in this test.
Final Words
It’s not too little, too late, but it’s definitely too late. Unfortunately a die shrink isn’t an easy thing to implement, so the tardiness of the 1.2GHz Pentium III is easily understandable. The price Intel is asking for the processors, although understandable from a marketing standpoint, makes obtaining a desktop Pentium III 1.2 very undesirable. The performance of the Pentium III 1.2 is respectable, and it’s clear that in the mobile market it will be competitive with the Athlon 4, but on the desktop the price is entirely too prohibitive.
It wasn’t by accident that the Pentium III 1.2 that happens to be able to outperform a 1.5GHz Pentium 4 in many cases will be priced at twice the cost of that very CPU which it outperforms. By the end of this year, the Pentium III will be gone, replaced by the Pentium 4 in every way imaginable. When coupled with the SDRAM and DDR SDRAM chipsets from Intel and VIA, the Pentium 4 will be more affordable and thus more desirable than the Pentium III forcing the brand that has been with us since early 1999 out the door. This is time to say goodbye to the bunny people that brought us the Pentium III and welcome the blue men that embrace the Pentium 4. Obviously this transition will take a bit longer in the mobile market, but the same fate lies in the future of the mobile Pentium III.
This Tualatin based Pentium III will live on in spirit at least, as Intel is set to debut a 1.2GHz Celeron by the year’s end based on a variant of this 0.13-micron Tualatin core. It would be a return to fame if the Celeron were to gain all of the benefits of this Tualatin core, but it will most likely debut in a crippled state offering nothing more than higher clock speeds. We all know about the “clock speed sells” mentality so it’s obvious that the Celeron will use the Tualatin core for its ability to provide what sells, and not what performs well.
As for the future of Intel’s mainstream desktop processors, they lie in the hands of the Pentium 4. And the Pentium 4 does have a very exciting future ahead of it in these final months of 2001. There’s a reason AMD has announced production of 0.13-micron Athlons by the end of this year…