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This document is intended for professional system integrators building PCs from industry-accepted motherboards, chassis, and peripherals. It summarizes information needed to successfully integrate Pentium® II processor-based PCs. The information in this document applies to PCs assembled using boxed Pentium II processors. (The term "boxed processors" refers to processors packaged for use by system integrators.)
Pentium II Processor Features
The Pentium II processor family is one of Intel's 32-bit Intel Architecture processors for mainstream desktops, workstations and servers. It integrates the Dynamic Execution capabilities of the Pentium Pro processor with Intel® MMX™ media enhancement technology.
Dynamic Execution expands on the superscalar architecture implemented in the Pentium processor. Dynamic Execution employs multiple branch prediction to anticipate jumps in the instruction flow, predicting where the next instructions can be found in memory. Dataflow analysis schedules execution of instructions when they are ready?independent of their original program order. And speculative execution increases the rate of program execution by looking ahead of the program counter, and executing instructions that are likely to be needed.
The Pentium II processor also incorporates Dual Independent Bus architecture. Two buses make up the Dual Independent Bus architecture: the L2 cache bus and the processor-to-main-memory system bus. The Pentium II processor can use both buses simultaneously, thus getting at times more than 2X more data in and out of the Pentium II processor than a single bus architecture processor like the Pentium processor. The 100-MHz system bus is more than 50% faster than the system bus of Pentium processor-based systems. It provides increased bandwidth for today's newer, demanding technologies, such as the Accelerated Graphics Port. The Dual Independent Bus architecture enables the L2 cache of the 450-MHz processor to run at 225-MHz?more than three times as fast as the L2 cache on Pentium processor-based systems. As the frequency of future Pentium II processors increases, so will the speed of the L2 cache bus. Finally, the pipelined system bus enables multiple simultaneous transactions (instead of singular sequential transactions), accelerating the flow of information within the system and boosting overall performance.
Intel MMX media enhancement technology facilitates the advanced 3D visualization and interactive capabilities required by today's high-end commercial and technical applications?and tomorrow's emerging applications? including full-screen, full-motion video, enhanced color, realistic graphics, and more. MMX technology achieves this through a Single Instruction, Multiple Data (SIMD) technique. It employs 57 new instructions, eight 64-bit wide MMX registers and four new data types.
Selected Pentium II Processors support Error Checking and Correction (ECC) protocol on the L2 cache bus. ECC protocol is a more comprehensive method of ensuring data integrity. ECC protocol can detect both single-bit and double-bit errors, and can correct single-bit errors automatically. Parity memory can only detect odd number bit errors, and relies on software to correct them. ECC provides advanced error detection and correction, ensures a high level of data integrity, and offers Pentium II processor-based systems reliable operation for mission critical applications. All Pentium II processors with frequencies of 300 MHz and above support ECC on the L2 cache bus. Cache bus ECC support for other Pentium II processors is marked on applicable Pentium II processor boxes. All Pentium II processors support ECC on the system bus.
Pentium II processors are available at speeds of 450-MHz, 400-MHz, 350-MHz, 333-MHz, 300-MHz, 266-MHz, and 233-MHz. Single Edge Contact Cartridges (S.E.C.C.). Pentium II processors at 450 MHz, 400 MHz, and 350 MHz require a motherboard that supports a 100-MHz system bus. The Pentium II processor is packaged in a Single Edge Contact Cartridge (S.E.C.C.) or an S.E.C.C.2 package. All have an integrated 512 KB L2 cache. The technology supports the use of two Pentium II processors in a dual processor system for multi-tasking and multi-threaded applications.
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