Pentium® III/Pentium® 4 Differences

The following is a list of major differences between the Pentium® III the Pentium® 4 processors:

  • Hyper-Pipelined micro-architecture. The processor core was completely redesigned and is now referred to as the NetBurst Architecture. While the P6 processor family had a 10-stage pipeline, the Pentium® 4 has a 20-stage pipeline.

  • The branch prediction mechanism was enhanced. This was necessary because a mispredicted branch in a processor with such a deep pipeline causes the creation of a large bubble and a deep dip in performance.

  • The ability to control the processor's internal temperature via software-controlled clock modulation was added.

  • The Last Branch, Interrupt, and Exception Recording was enhanced with the addition ...

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