QUESTION: Looking for speed ranges for older CPUs

[Doug Whittier]

Hi, all.

I'm trying to run a report indicating which of our older machines are
running Pentium IIs and which run Pentium IIIs.

The report I have is from SMS, and all I can see is the current clock
speed. I don't see any SMS metrics about CPU class.

Is there some table published somewhere, which indicates which class
of CPU I likely have, given a certain clock speed?

Thanks much!

Cheers,

Doug Whittier

 

[Ed]

Hi, all.

I'm trying to run a report indicating which of our older machines are
running Pentium IIs and which run Pentium IIIs.

The report I have is from SMS, and all I can see is the current clock
speed. I don't see any SMS metrics about CPU class.

Is there some table published somewhere, which indicates which class
of CPU I likely have, given a certain clock speed?

Thanks much!

Cheers,

Doug Whittier

these might help?
http://www.tom.womack.net/x86FAQ/faq_time.html
http://users.erols.com/chare/elec.htm

 

[Nate Edel]

I'm trying to run a report indicating which of our older machines are
running Pentium IIs and which run Pentium IIIs.

IIRC, and assuming you don't have any Celerons, it's only the 450s where
there's overlap. Pentium IIs only went up to 450, and P-IIIs started at
450mhz.

For the 450mhz, there's no way to tell purely by megahertz rate.

There's also possible overlap between the 300/333/400mhz Celeron parts with
Pentium II chips, and 500/600+ mhz Celeron parts with the Pentium III chips.

366/433/466/533mhz (did they make a 566?) parts are only Celerons. I'm not
sure which model Celerons do/don't have SSE.

 

[Angry American]

This is a handy little program that I use for CPU/chipset ID's, works like a
charm.

http://www.cpuid.com/

Dan

 

[Tony Hill]

I'm trying to run a report indicating which of our older machines are
running Pentium IIs and which run Pentium IIIs.

The report I have is from SMS, and all I can see is the current clock
speed. I don't see any SMS metrics about CPU class.

Is there some table published somewhere, which indicates which class
of CPU I likely have, given a certain clock speed?

Your probably better off getting some sort of CPUID util, I'm sure
there are some that can even be setup to report over the network.
Otherwise you might want to check www.sandpile.org for some info about
all the chips that Intel (and AMD, Cyrix/IDT/VIA, Transmeta, etc.)
have sold in the past 10 years or so.

Here's a quick intro to things (ignoring mobile processors):

Pentium: 60 - 200MHz
PentiumMMX: 166 - 233MHz
PPro: 133 - 200MHz
PII: 233 - 450MHz
PIII: 450 - 1.4GHz
P4: 1.3GHz - 3.6GHz (and still going)

As you can see, there is a bit of overlap here. It's even worse when
you throw the Celeron into the mix, as various types of Celerons have
run at speeds ranging from 233MHz up to 1.4GHz and then from 1.7GHz up
to 2.8GHz with future chips to run faster still. Of course, there are
at least 4 very distinct versions of the Celeron processor that have
been sold, not to mention two fairly distinct versions of the PIII and
P4 processor.

Long story short, clock speed is only good as a rough guess as to what
processor you've got. If you really want to know, find yourself a
nice little CPUID util.

 

[Grumble]

Here's a quick intro to things (ignoring mobile processors):

Pentium: 60 - 200MHz
PentiumMMX: 166 - 233MHz
PPro: 133 - 200MHz
PII: 233 - 450MHz
PIII: 450 - 1.4GHz
P4: 1.3GHz - 3.6GHz (and still going)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

How much longer?

 

[Rupert Pigott]

Your probably better off getting some sort of CPUID util, I'm sure
there are some that can even be setup to report over the network.
Otherwise you might want to check www.sandpile.org for some info about
all the chips that Intel (and AMD, Cyrix/IDT/VIA, Transmeta, etc.)
have sold in the past 10 years or so.

Here's a quick intro to things (ignoring mobile processors):

Pentium: 60 - 200MHz
PentiumMMX: 166 - 233MHz
PPro: 133 - 200MHz

Pretty sure I've seen some 333MHz PPros.

PII: 233 - 450MHz
PIII: 450 - 1.4GHz
P4: 1.3GHz - 3.6GHz (and still going)

Worth pointing out that the P4 core has gone through some fairly
heavy changes in order to do scale that far. By that same token
you could claim that the P6 (PPro) core has scaled from 133MHz
to 1.4GHz (and beyond if you include Centrinos).

Cheers,
Rupert

 

[David Wang]

Pretty sure I've seen some 333MHz PPros.

I don't think 133 MHz PPro's were ever a product. 150 MHz
was the lowest bin.

The 333 MHz PPro wasn't called a PPro IIRC. It was called
a Pentium II upgrade processor.

 

[Bill Davidsen]

Pretty sure I've seen some 333MHz PPros.

I don't think they were PPro cores, I had several systems, and still
have two in production, and the 333 part was a P-II in a PPro socket.
The cache only ran at half speed.

 

[Tony Hill]

I don't think 133 MHz PPro's were ever a product. 150 MHz
was the lowest bin.

They were produced but I'm not sure if they were ever sold. The first
engineering samples were 133MHz, but they might have started volume
sales at 150MHz.

The 333 MHz PPro wasn't called a PPro IIRC. It was called
a Pentium II upgrade processor.

I can't remember the exact details of that chip, it was one of their
"overdrive" processors that was basically a PII with integrated cache
(maybe even a Celeron or a PIII core? I can't remember for sure) sold
in a socket 8 form. Pretty rare, specialty-type chip.

 

[Nate Edel]

Pretty sure I've seen some 333MHz PPros.

I never saw a 133mhz PPro -- I thought they just had 150/166/180/200.

The 333mhz Socket-8 Overdrive "PPro" was a Pentium-II -- remember the
486-socketed 83mhz Pentium Overdrive?

Worth pointing out that the P4 core has gone through some fairly
heavy changes in order to do scale that far.

From a software/API perspective I'm pretty sure Northwood/Willamette are
identical, except for Hyperthreading (and that's enabled in many
Northwoods.) Prescott, now...

By that same token you could claim that the P6 (PPro) core has scaled from
133MHz to 1.4GHz (and beyond if you include Centrinos).

The introduction of MMX with the P-II and earlier Celerons (not to mention
the other performance tweaks), and the introduction of SSE2 with the P-III
and later P6 Celerons is IMO significantl.

 

[Rupert Pigott]

Nate Edel wrote:

[SNIP]

The introduction of MMX with the P-II and earlier Celerons (not to mention

MMX turned up with the Pentium. My friend bought a Pentium MMX 200, I
bought a Pentium Pro 200 (which lacked MMX, but shredded the MMX on
FP and unoptimised 32bit code). IIRC that happened within the same
month.

the other performance tweaks), and the introduction of SSE2 with the P-III
and later P6 Celerons is IMO significantl.

ISA changes don't necessarily turn the core upside down, and I don't
think they did in those cases. "tweaks" are generally small changes
to an existing design too.


Cheers,
Rupert

 

[Nate Edel]

Nate Edel wrote:
[SNIP]

The introduction of MMX with the P-II and earlier Celerons (not to mention

MMX turned up with the Pentium. My friend bought a Pentium MMX 200, I
bought a Pentium Pro 200 (which lacked MMX, but shredded the MMX on
FP and unoptimised 32bit code). IIRC that happened within the same
month.

Yes, I'm well aware of that with the PPro and P-MMX. Then again, the P-Pro
underperformed on 16-bit and particularly segmented-model code, which made
it a poor choice for gamers when games were often still for DOS, and a poor
choice for those folks still on Win 3.1. It was great for NT, though, and a
mixed but generally good choice for Win95.

ISA changes don't necessarily turn the core upside down, and I don't
think they did in those cases. "tweaks" are generally small changes
to an existing design too.

They don't turn the core upside down, but they often are more noticeable to
customers than core redesigns.

 

[Rupert Pigott]

Nate Edel wrote:
[SNIP]

The introduction of MMX with the P-II and earlier Celerons (not to mention

MMX turned up with the Pentium. My friend bought a Pentium MMX 200, I
bought a Pentium Pro 200 (which lacked MMX, but shredded the MMX on
FP and unoptimised 32bit code). IIRC that happened within the same
month.

Yes, I'm well aware of that with the PPro and P-MMX. Then again, the P-Pro
underperformed on 16-bit and particularly segmented-model code, which made

Not really. I had the opportunity to benchmark them side by side. Rarely
saw much over 5% hit. I know that won't stop you parroting the wisdom
that originated with the Intel marketdroids, but hell, I benchmarked the
machines side by side and I didn't have any axe to grind either way. For
me the 30-50% improvement on FP in the binaries I ran more than made up
for the odd 5% hit. Quake liked the Pentium Pro a lot too, which was a
bonus.

it a poor choice for gamers when games were often still for DOS, and a poor
choice for those folks still on Win 3.1. It was great for NT, though, and a
mixed but generally good choice for Win95.

The PPro 200 burnt the MMX200 on Quake and Carmageddon to name two games
I cared about at the time. Furthermore Windows 3.1 had bugger all to do
with games back then, Win95 changed that of course and yes, the PPro was
more than a match for the MMX200 in Win95. YMMV, but I've met very few
people who actually had the machines side by side and compared them like
I did.

They don't turn the core upside down, but they often are more noticeable to
customers than core redesigns.

Erm, no, not in my experience. Sure, a good tweak in the right place can
have a big impact on specific codes, but in practice a core redesign has
a broader impact.

Compare and contrast the SPEC benchmark profiles of the Pentium II,
Pentium III and Netburst (Pentium IV) cores for example.

Cheers,
Rupert

 

[David Wren]

Compare and contrast the SPEC benchmark profiles of the Pentium II,
Pentium III and Netburst (Pentium IV) cores for example.

There is also some benchmarks for a rangle of older CPUs here,
http://www.passmark.com/cpureview/index.htm
80486 to P4