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.