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Pentium 3

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  • 23-04-2003 9:51am
    #1
    SCULLY
    Closed Accounts Posts: 355 ✭✭


    This might be a very stupid question but here goes:

    Do all Pentium 3 chips have the same processing speed: -
    If so, what is the speed and if not, how do I find out what speed my chip has (I ran dxdiag but all it said was that it is a Pentium 3).

    Cheers


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    #2
    SouperComputer
    Registered Users Posts: 6,949 ✭✭✭SouperComputer


    you could try msinfo32 at teh command prompt.


    it may come up on the screen at boot up, or in bios, it shoud be in there also.

    excepting that, get a copy of belarc advisor or Sisoft Sandra from download.com, it will give you the clock speed.


    PIII chips started at 450Mhz, and went up as far as 1.4Ghz, so yes, they run at different speeds :)


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    #3
    SCULLY
    Closed Accounts Posts: 355 ✭✭SCULLY


    I'll try that - cheers............


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    #4
    LoLth
    Registered Users Posts: 10,339 ✭✭✭✭LoLth


    Does the speed not appear in the system properties?

    (right click the MY COMPUTER icon and selet PROPERTIES).

    The processor (Pentium II , III, IV etc ) is listed at the bottom along with the speed (1.7, 866 etc).


    If not, belarc advisor is the way to go.


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    #5
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 91,761 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    Apart from the "Mythical Indication of Processor Speed" Most P3' will have a stepping level - not sure if any speed implications - in a multiprocessor system all CPU's should be the same minimum stepping - also the level of internal cache might vary ???
    eg: 2GHz Xeon with 2MB cache is about €4,500 more than a 3GHz one P4 with 512KB cache.

    Also in the BIOS cache internal (in CPU) and external (on motherboard) can be enabled or disabled - these will also affect data throughput

    Or when the computer starts up - it should tell you it's speed (on some you may have to go into setup to see it)...

    If you want to do research on it - start out at http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030217/index.html
    "Benchmark Marathon: 65 CPUs from 100 MHz to 3066 MHz"

    (edit) CPU ID utilities
    http://www.upgradeware.com/english/support/tools.htm

    Instruction Set differences: not a major problem anymore 'cos if a program won't run 'cos the CPU don't support the instruction chances are the CPU would be too slow anyway.

    When it comes to comparing same MHz 286 vs. 386 or the 486 vs. Pentium the verdict is quite clear - the later CPU's did not offer any real speed increase when when the same code could run on both. However, for the new instructions and memory modes the older CPU's ran at exactly 0 MHz. (Note: 486's are about 40% faster overall than the same MHz 386 - and you just have to laugh at people who got pentium pro's to run win95 & microsoft office - ya see the pro was slower on 16 bit code .... )

    Note: the main reasons for a lot of current SW not running on 386sx's is down to the 16MB limit and the fact that a lot of them had a multiply problem that only showed when the chip got hot and the lack of a maths co-processor (387) which all later chips (apart from the 486sx) had built in.
    Of course this generalisation excludes games - but then again if you give those designers a recalculate 3D sprite instruction that took one clock cycle - they'd still want parallel processing..


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