Pentium III - 733MHz (Coppermine)

The Intel Pentium III processor, though very similar in architecture to the Pentium II and the older and lesser known Pentium Pro, has proven that it can compete very well with products from AMD, some of which are based on an architecture that is technologically superior to the Pentium III, and the 733MHz Coppermine version, with its 256KB full speed L2 cache and 133MHz front side bus, is no exception to this observable truth.

Of course, any processor is limited more by the rest of the components in a computer than it is by its own particular speed and capabilities in terms of its ability to affect overall system performance. That aside, however, let's take a look at what this little chip (and I do mean little. This thing is tiny!) did for my computer and what it can certainly do for yours.

In my opinion, the 733MHz Pentium III offers the best price/performance ratio, but also keep in mind that processor prices change almost daily, and they almost always inch their way down. I purchased this retail boxed chip for $220, which I attribute to various factors including the type of packaging the chip comes in, the number of faster processors available, and the particular distributor I purchased it from.

When I bought this chip, I also bought a new motherboard and new memory. The motherboard contains Intel's 820 chipset, support for Rambus memory, and Ultra ATA-66 IDE controllers, so the performance increase I noticed over my previous system configuration, which included a 450MHz Pentium III and 128MB of standard pc100 SDRAM on a motherboard with Intel's 440BX chipset, has everything to do with all of these new components as well as the new processor.

The 733MHz Pentium III is available only in what they call a FC-PGA (Flip Chip - Pin Grid Array) package, which basically means that instead of the slot that the Pentium II and earlier Pentium III's fit into, this Pentium III fits into a socket, specifically, Socket370 (370 pins). This lowers the cost of the chip because the packaging is much less expensive than the big and heavy Pentium II slot format.

Now onto the speed tests. First of all, I should flesh out my computer's updated specifications: 733MHz Pentium III, 128MB RDRAM (Rambus, pc800), ASUS P3C-E motherboard, 8.4GB Fujitsu UDMA-66 hard drive, Nvidia Riva TNT 16MB AGP video card, Pioneer 10x slot DVD drive, etc. NOTE: only the processor, RAM, and motherboard were updated.

Since I use Windows 2000 Professional, as opposed to Windows 9x, I can get a more detailed description about how much my processor and RAM are being used without additional utilities.

Before, with my 450MHz Pentium III, pc100 SDRAM, and 440BX-based motherboard, my CPU utilization hovered at a consistent 4 to 5 percent. This is with standard Windows 2000 services running in the background. Now, with the 733MHz processor, Rambus RAM, and new 820-based motherboard, the CPU utilization hovered at 0 to 2 percent.

Watching DVD's, using a software DVD player, used to demand 60 to 80 percent of my 450MHz processor's power, and with the 733MHz chip in there, it is around 40 to 50 percent. I used the same DVD player (and version) that I did prior to upgrading my computer and the same drivers for the video card.

One thing I think is very important to mention is the 133MHz front side bus. My 450MHz Pentium III used a 100MHz front side bus, so I effectively increased the size of the pipe through which data can travel, and this most certainly means a lot in terms of overall system performance.

The long and the short of all this is that a computer's speed and overall performance is determined by much more than just the speed and type of processor you use. Three main components, the CPU, RAM, and motherboard chipset (often called the "core logic chipset"), which make up what I call a computer's overall "system architecture", together play a much larger role in increasing the performance of a computer, under any operating system, than putting a faster processor into the same system architecture. Adding memory almost always increases performance, but only to a certain point, which is different for every operating system and every particular set of software applications you use.

In my case, I improved every major component in what is essentially the backbone of a computer, and I noticed a very significant boost in performance. However, pound-for-pound, the 733MHz Pentium III chews through anything I throw at it much faster than my 450MHz Pentium III, and that is certainly worth the money.