HP Professional AP500 Compaq Professional Workstation AP500 Key Technologies W - Page 4

WHITE PAPER (cont'd) Compaq Workstations - Key Technologies CUSTOMER BENEFITS • Major leaps in processor power. The new Pentium II 400-MHz and 450-MHz processors provide a significant increase in processing power over previous Intel processors. The Pentium II 450-MHz processors deliver up to a 28% performance boost over the Pentium II 350-MHz processors in certain integer or multimedia benchmarks. • Improved overall system performance. The 100-MHz FSB improves the overall performance of the workstation by enhancing the speed at which data is transferred between the processor and other parts of the system. • Improved value. The new Pentium II processors deliver a great value by delivering higher performance at an affordable price. MMX Similar to the previous Pentium II processors, the new Pentium II 400-MHz and 450-MHz processors have MMX technology. MMX (MultiMedia Extensions) is the name for the 57 multimedia instructions Intel has added to its processors. These multimedia extension instructions significantly improve performance on CPU-intensive multimedia applications. For additional information on MMX, please access the Intel web site at http://developer.intel.com/drg/mmx/Support/faq.htm. COMPAQ SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE Intel 440BX Chipset The AP500 uses the Intel 440BX chipset. The Intel 440BX chipset was designed as a follow on to the 440LX, which had replaced the previous generation of 440FX chipsets used with Pentium Pro and early Pentium II processors. Chipsets include technologies that allow processors, memory, I/O, graphics, and other devices to communicate and work together in a computer. The 440LX was Intel's first chipset designed specifically for more advanced Pentium II systems, providing built-in support for SDRAM, Ultra ATA hard drives, and Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) technology. (More information on AGP later in this paper.) The Intel 440BX chipset also supports these features, as well as a 100-MHz FSB. As mentioned earlier, the benefits of the 100-MHz FSB are greater processor-to-memory bandwidth and faster performance. The 440BX supports the 100-MHz FSB, an upgraded infrastructure designed to support clock speeds of 350 MHz and above in the more advanced Pentium II processors. This additional 100-MHz FSB support is the key difference between the BX and the LX chipsets. 4