1 / 11

Pentium Pro Processor Overview

Pentium Pro Processor Overview. Elijah W. Bass December 6, 2000. Pentium Pro Roadmap. Pentium Pro Overview Instruction Set Format Process Stages Processing Units Branch Prediction Pentium Pro/II Performance Pentium Pro/II Cache Performance. Pentium Pro Overview.

jaden
Download Presentation

Pentium Pro Processor Overview

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Pentium Pro Processor Overview Elijah W. Bass December 6, 2000

  2. Pentium Pro Roadmap • Pentium Pro Overview • Instruction Set Format • Process Stages • Processing Units • Branch Prediction • Pentium Pro/II Performance • Pentium Pro/II Cache Performance

  3. Pentium Pro Overview • The main goal in the design of the P6 family micro-architecture was to exceed the Pentium processor performance while utilizing the existing 0.6-micrometer, four-layer, metal BICMOL manufacturing process. • The Pentium Pro processor has a three-way superscalar architecture, permitting the execution of up to three instructions per clock cycle. • The P6 superscalar implementation has dynamic execution i.e. micro-data flow analysis, out-of-order execution, superior branch prediction, and speculative execution. Object code is decoded by three instruction decode units working in parallel.

  4. Pentium Pro Instruction Set Format • Pentium Pro executes the x86 CISC set • Pentium Pro decodes and translates each Intel x86 instruction into micro-operations • The Pentium Pro processes instructions in three stages

  5. Pentium Pro Process Stages • The first stage consists of the instruction begin fetched, decoded, and converted into micro-ops • Reservation station (RS) is the buffer between the first and second stages • The second stage consists of the micro-operations being executed in the out-of-order core • The third stage retires the micro-operations in original program order • Completed micro-operations wait in the reorder buffer until all of the preceding instructions have been retired

  6. Pentium Pro Processing Units • P Pro micro-architecture pipeline is divided into four sections • 8K L1 caches • 256KB, 512KB, 1MB, or 2MB L2 caches • the front end, • the out-of-order execution core • the retire section

  7. P Pro Branch Prediction • Predicted to jump the next time if the counter is in state 2 or 3 • Predicted to not jump if in state 0 or 1 • P Pro branch prediction mechanism can learn to recognize repetitive patterns

  8. Pentium Pro/II Performance • The Pentium II L2 cache utilizes standard commodity SRAM • The faster core frequencies and larger Pentium II L1 cache size often compensate for the slower L2 cache speed

  9. Pentium Pro/II Cache Performance • P II L2 Cache is located off the processor die • P II L2 Cache operates at ½ core frequency • P II cacheability limit is 512 MB • P Pro cacheability limit is 4 GB

  10. Pentium Pro/II Memory Access • Pentium Pro 200/256 out perform P II 233/512 • Pentium Pro 200/1024 performs similar to P II 266/512

  11. Pentium Pro/II Applicability • P II outperform P Pro in CPU intensive apps • P Pro outperform PII in memory intensive apps

More Related