Get ready for the new generation of Pentium Processors

Get ready for the new generation of Pentium Processors

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): Here's another term you'll be hearing a lot in
the next couple of months: Media rich. Coming from the
microprocessor maker that far and away dominates the PC world,
this buzzword is expected to have a strong impact, particularly
when the next generation of Pentium processors become widely
available. Which won't be long, maybe about next April.

These new, 4.5 million-transistor Pentiums are not processor
chips with higher clock speed ratings. They are still the Pentium
166 and 200 MHz for the desktop with the implementation of the
MMX technology. This time, however, Intel breaks the tradition of
letting the mobile computing world lag behind the desktop. This
time it has simultaneously introduced the 150 and 166 MHz for the
mobile computer with the same new technology implemented.

I've mentioned the MMX technology in a couple of my past
articles, but since Intel formally launched the new
microprocessors in the United States last week, I guess it's time
we take a closer look at the new technology in order to get some
idea of where it is moving so as to make a better decision in our
inevitable next purchasing plan.

Eight bit

The computer users' thirst for better graphics performance,
higher quality audio and video never seems to be satisfied.
Furthermore, the Internet is no longer merely a source for
information, it has become the place for in interactive
entertainment. The media-rich content of the World Wide Web, 3-D
graphics, virtual reality, real-time animation, all further whet
the users appetite for better and better multimedia performance.

The MMX technology, which Intel claims to be their biggest
innovation in the last ten years (they consider it as monumental
as the move from the 16-bit 80286 to the 32-bit 80386
architecture), promises what users with an insatiable hunger for
more processing power want.

A Pentium processor with the MMX technology will process eight
bits of data in a parallel fashion as opposed to one at a time as
in the conventional Pentium processors. Intel calls this mode
'Single Instruction Multiple Data', or SIMD. A set of 57 new
instructions has been added specifically to handle in parallel
the integer computation common in multimedia algorithms. As can
be expected, this yields a performance increase of up to eight
fold--depending on the degree to which the application has been
designed to take advantage of this feature.

Furthermore, because of the new instructions, the processor
has less work to do. This creates a 'headroom', which software
developers can take advantage of by adding new features to their
programs.

Performance

The new Pentium processors, according to Intel, will have an
improvement of up to 60 percent in executing multimedia
instructions over the non-MMX ones. In addition, the internal
cache has been doubled in size to 32 KB. This, obviously, yields
a performance boost over the conventional Pentium processors,
which have only a 16 KB internal cache. The new chips also have a
more efficient branch prediction, which Intel says will increase
performance over the plain-vanilla processors of the same clock
speed by 10 to 20 percent.

With all these enhancements, the MMX technology will usher in
such features as life-like color, full-screen video and graphics,
real time animation and manipulation of images, 3-D audio and
dynamic lighting. Furthermore, it will turn the PC into a world-
class virtual reality machine. Game lovers have never had it
better.

As we'd expect, Intel will incorporate MMX in their future
processors, including the Pentium Pros and Pentium OverDrives.
All new PCs based on the MMX-capable Pentium chips will bear the
MMX logo in addition to the ubiquitous 'Intel Inside' logo. The
logo looks like a triangular 'hat' on the upper left corner,
painted in rainbow colors.

Other characteristics of the new Pentiums include the dual
voltage use. Their I/O still uses the 3.3 Volt current so that no
modification is necessary to the existing PC components. The core
of the processors uses 2.8 Volt instead, so--contrary to what
some observers in the industry have suspected--heat is not a
problem. The mobile version utilizes even lower voltage level,
i.e., 2.45 Volt, so that thermal performance is better than the
older generation. Except for the dual voltage supply, the MMX
Pentium processors are pin-compatible with the other Pentiums.

The chips are built on Intel's enhanced .35 micron CMOS
process technology, which results in low power consumption. If
you're a do-it-yourselfer, you can buy the boxed version of the
processor. In the box you'll get the processor, the fan and
heatsink, a CD-ROM sampler containing demos and applications that
are already optimized for MMX, and the 'Intel Inside plus MMX'
sticker.

Applications

In order to reap the benefits of this technology, we have to
run software that has been developed specifically for it.
Developers of MMX-enabled software programs, such as interactive
games and references, will place the MMX logo on their boxes, so
that consumers will be able to tell them apart from non-MMX
software.

Who will benefit most from this new technology? If you use
the PC only for creating text-based documents or spreadsheets,
you won't really have to go after the MMX technology. But if you
work with the so-called media rich content, you'll be able to
work more efficiently with MMX processors. Voice recognition,
such as IBM's VoiceType, will definitely benefit from MMX, and
IBM has pledged their support for this technology. Video playback
will be improved, as both the frame rate and color depth are
increased. Image manipulation, such as photo-retouching, will be
snappier, as the processors now work on eight pixels
simultaneously instead of only one.

MMX will also help those who use videoconferencing
applications over the plain old telephone system (POTS) network,
an application that will become more common in 1997.

Decision

Here comes again the classic question: Should you wait until
these new processors become widely available, or should you go
ahead and buy a new Pentium machine today? As always, it depends
on when you need the new machine.

If you envision the applications you'll be using will not deal
much with media rich content, you don't really have to wait. But
if you use multimedia, including voice recognition and video
conferencing, you should definitely wait for a couple of months.
MMX technology will give you significant performance boost for
your video, audio and communication tasks.