SSE2 SIMD extensions — One of the best ways to counter a low IPC is
to make each instruction do more work. To that end, Intel has added a set
of 144 new instructions, dubbed SSE2, to the mix. Like the original
Streaming SIMD Extensions, SSE2 involves executing a single instruction
on multiple data targets (hence SIMD) at once. Most importantly, SSE2
handles 128-bit, double-precision floating-point math. The ability to
handle more precise floating-point numbers makes SSE2 just the ticket
for accelerating a host of multimedia, 3D, engineering, and workstation-
type tasks—once software is properly optimized to take advantage of it.
A relatively simple FPU — The Pentium 4's floating-point unit isn't as
capable as the FPU in the Pentium III, and it's quite a bit less capable
than the Athlon's hoss FPU. To put it simply, the P4's FPU can't do as
much work at once, and it has higher latencies in some cases. Programs
optimized for SSE2 will be able to bypass the P4's FPU in many cases, but
without special optimizations, the P4 will have a hard time keeping up.
Produced: Late 2000
Manufacturer: Intel
CPU Speeds: 1.5 GHz to 3 GHz
FSB: 200 Mhz to 500 Mhz
Fabrication Size: 0.25 µm to 0.13 µm
Architecture: x86
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