Architecture of Pentium IV.

INTRODUCTION:
The high-performance Pentium 4 processor-based system provides an
extremely powerful computing experience, whether having a broadband
connection to the Web, playing cutting edge online games, watching or
creating videos, or running other performance-intensive applications,
this chip intensifies the 3D action of your favorite games and enables
clear and smooth audio and video streaming.
Pentium® 4 processors provide the performance to power the
connected home, which means linking all your digital devices in order to
extend their capabilities, from your digital camera and MP3 player to
your entire home entertainment system.
AN OVERVIEW OF PENTIUM 4:
The Pentium 4 carries a whopping 42 million - 14 million more than the
currently Available Pentium III Coppermine processors. This massive
increase in transistor count correlates directly with die size, so naturally,
the Pentium 4 is significantly larger than its predecessor. So, why did
Intel decide to make the Pentium 4 larger? Since the .13-micron process
is not quite ready yet (and won't be until next year), the P4 will be
etched using the same .18-micron, aluminum traces process as the
Coppermine. It does not take a mathematician to realize that 42 million
transistors will not fit in a smaller space than a current product with 28
million. The question then becomes - what purpose do the extra
transistors serve?

Execution Trace Cache

Level 1 cache is normally split between the instruction and data

caches, both of which are 16KB on the Pentium III. This go 'round, Intel
has decreased the data cache to 8KB and has re-implemented the
instruction cache to store micro-ops in the path of the program execution
so that results of program branches are integrated into the same cache
line. Latency is eliminated because the execution engine can retrieve
decoded operations from the cache directly, rather than fetching and
decoding commonly used instructions over and over again. In addition,
instructions that are not used do not get stored in the cache, making the
Execution Trace Cache more efficient than previous implementations.

Advanced Dynamic Execution

The second key to minimizing the branch mis-predict penalty lies

with Intel's Dynamic Execution Engine, which keeps the Arithmetic
Logic Units busy with instructions to execute. As opposed to the
Pentium III, which only provided 42 instructions from which the
execution units could choose, the Pentium 4 offers126, increasing the
probability that the data needed after a cache miss will be available
immediately rather than having to wait to fetch it from memory. As
processor frequency ramps upwards, this becomes increasingly
important since system memory speed does not scale with the processor.

In addition to providing a greater window of instructions for the

execution engine to choose from, enhanced branch prediction has also
been provided to further reduce the number of mis-predictions. Intel
estimates this number to be about 33% lower than the P6's branch
prediction capabilities because of a Twenty-two points, plus triple-word-
score, plus fifty points for using all my letters.

Rapid Execution Engine

If you have yet to pick up on a recurring theme for the Pentium 4,

here's a clue-execution. In order to further compensate for the lower IPC
of the Net Burst Architecture, Intel has clocked the Arithmetic Logic
Units at twice the frequency of the processor core. So, on a 1.5GHz
Pentium 4, the ALU's are screaming at 3GHz with latency that is half the
duration of the core clock.

Intel’s estimates that as processor speeds increase, the integer

performance of the Pentium 4 will improve since the speed of the ALU
units (which most significantly impact integer performance) escalate
twice as fast.

400MHz Front Side Bus

One of the most dramatic additions to the Net Burst architecture is

a quad-pumped 100MHz-system bus, delivering the equivalent of
3.2GB/s of bandwidth. The idea behind the accelerated 64-bit bus is to
match the bandwidth of the dual RDRAM channels that also provide
3.2GB/s of theoretical bandwidth. Of course the signaling scheme put in
place by Intel could not be 100% efficient, so there is also a buffer to
help facilitate sustained 400MHz data transfers. With such a high-speed
bus in place, the Pentium 4 is able to push more than three times the
amount of data as the Pentium III (which is limited to 1.06GB/s on a
133MHz bus).

Advanced Transfer Cache

Like the Pentium III before it, the Pentium 4 boasts 256KB of on-
die cache on a 256-bit bus. Unlike the Coppermine, however, the
Pentium 4's L2 cache transfers data on each core clock rather than every
other cycle. Given the following equation we can calculate the data
transfer rate of the L2 to the CPU's core.

(256-bit (32 byte) x 1 (data transferred per clock) x 1.5GHz) =

48GB/s for Pentium 4 1.5GHz

(256-bit (32 byte) x .5 (data transferred per clock) x 1GHz) =

16GB/s for Pentium III 1GHz

Again, as processor frequencies increase, so does the memory

bandwidth of the L2. For example, once Intel hits 2GHz, the L2 will be
able to provide 64GB/s of bandwidth - another example of Intel striving
to keep the execution units busy rather than sitting idle.

CLOCK SPEED AND BANDWITH

In the case of the Pentium 4 a new architecture was the only

route to increasing the clock speed, as the aging P6 core had already
long since exceeded its design limits.
However, having a processor running at 1+ GHz is useless if it is sitting
idle and waiting for data to process. Therefore Intel has to make sure
that the rest of the system is capable of feeding enough data to keep it
running efficiently. One of the biggest bottlenecks is the memory
subsystem responsible for data storage and retrieval. A processor is
capable of a 2 GB/s bandwidth will be severely bottlenecked by a
memory bandwidth of only 800 MB/s. Most code is executed from main
memory, and approximately 80% of a processor's cycles are devoted to
manipulating this data. With current processor and memory
architectures, a 1+ GHz processor demands a memory bus actually
capable of that bandwidth. Significant performance benefits await
adequate chipsets.

Figure: - Pentium 4
Quadruple: System bus in the Pentium 4
Important for the speed are not only the features specified
above, but also the Level-2-Cache and the system bus. The latter is
the connection between processor and main memory and clocks
usually not as fast as the processor. In principle applies: The faster the
bus clock, the faster is the total output of the computer. Since the
Power Macs of the first generations only had a bus clock of 50 MHz,
the beige G3-Macs made up to 66.7 MHz and the PowerBooks up to
83.4MHz. The blue-white G3s and all G4s even made 100 MHz PCs
however have faster bus systems. The best Pentium II settings are at
present in charge of 133 MHz the Pentium 4 catapults the bus clock
about three times upward. With the help of the Intel-i850-Chipset,
which needs Rambus RDRAM as memory, system bus clocks of 400
MHz should be possible. Compared with the current G4s, this is
relation of 4 to 1 in favor of the Pentium PC.
Cache in Full Processor Speed
The system bus clocking also determines the clocking of the Level-
2-Cache. But also the onboard, inline, and backside-caches became
important rate factors. Target of these developments was to offer a
fast data supply. The system bus and the other system constituents
could not keep up any longer with the continually increasing
processor speed. Thus fast processors are not nor slowed down by
these components the computer manufacturers tried to create a cache,
 which faster than the system bus. While the first Power PC and
Pentium computers still had to get by without a level-2-cache, the
Pentium III computers used 256 KB, which are located in the
processor core. The advantage: Compared to the backside-cache of a
Power Mac, which is usually clocked with the half processor rate, the
Pentium III processors can use the full clocking of the processor. The
Pentium 4 offers the same concept: 256 KB in the processor core with
a clocking relation of 1:1 (CPU and cache). In contrast to the Pentium
III the bandwidth trebled itself, which stands for a substantial
rate thrust. But according to Intel the so-called trace-cache brings the
actual advantage in performance. Making use of the Transmeta
technology the code is already translated and is not decoded just in
time in the L1-command memory. This procedure saves additional
waiting time.

Configuration of PC:-
Although most computer users are aware of the importance of
basic PC components like the RAM and hard drive, other
components -like the graphics and sound cards, network
adapter and central processing unit -- are also critical to a PC's
operation. You need this information to troubleshoot or
upgrade your computer and when downloading drivers. For the
best performance, business owners should keep up-to-date with
their computer equipment; to determine whether or not you
should upgrade a workstation, review the PC's configuration in
Windows.
Method-1

Click on the Start button and then enter ‘system’ in the search field.
Choose ‘system information’ under the ‘programs’.

Method-2
Click on ‘System summary’ and you will see the details regarding the
operating system installed on the computer, the details of the
processor and the basic input and output systems and the RAM
details.

Method-3

Double-click on "Components." From the list you will see in front of

you, select a hardware device. You will get the details about its
name, manufacturer’s name, location of the driver and other details.

Method-4
Click on the Start button, right-click on "Computer" and then click
on "Properties". This process will display the information about the
laptop’s computer make and model, operating system, RAM
specifications, and processor model.

Method-5
In a Windows laptop, you cannot see the information about the
motherboard make and model. You can however use third party
applications like CPU-Z or SiSoftware Sandra to know the details
about the motherboard.