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Intel 'Klamath'

Intel's first Pentium II processor. Introduced on 7 May 1997 and contains 7.5 million transistors. Basically it's an evolution of the Pentium Pro.

The Pentium II was housed in a big plastic package (as seen on the right picture, click here for a bigger version). The big package has space for L2-cache since the Pentium II has 512KB off-die L2 cache running at 50% of the clock frequency. Off-die L2 cache is cheaper and simpler to manufacture which cut down on production costs. However, off-die L2 cache is slower than on-die L2 cache. The most notable improvements of the Pentium II are better execution performance of 16-bit code and a double L1-cache (from 16KB to 32KB). Of course the large off-die L2 cache improves performance. In a Pentium or Pentium MMX system the L2 cache would be installed on the motherboard which is further away from the CPU and uses a lower clock-frequency compared to the Pentium II.

Klamath is superseded by Deschutes; which was produced with a 25nm process rather than 35nm.

Intel Pentium II 233 'SL2HD'

Chip-wise this Pentium II 233 is identical to my other Pentium II 233. The only difference is that this one doesn't have the standard Intel cooling attached. Systems builders could choose their own heatsink/fan solution instead. > Read more

Intel Pentium II 300 'SL2HA'

Identical to this Pentium II 300 but 10 weeks newer. > Read more

Intel Pentium II 300 'SL2HA'

This Pentium II 300 used the 350nm 'Klamath'-core and is the fastest CPU you can get with this core. 'Klamath' formed the basis for the first Pentium II's released and was succeeded by the 250nm 'Deschutes'.

Not all Pentium II 300's are based on the 'Klamath' core, however. Some of the 300's are equipped with the newer and more energy efficient 'Deschutes' core. > Read more

Intel Pentium II 233 'SL2QA'

Expensive when it was new (1997) and quickly faded away when the Pentium II got faster and more affordable. In the early days motherboards and SDR-SDRAM wasn't cheap. One was better off with a Pentium MMX or AMD K6 using regular EDO on a much cheaper socket 7 motherboard.

In 1998 the 233MHz model would be the budget version of the Pentium II and spending a bit extra would boost you up to 266 or 300MHz. In late 1997 Intel dropped prices from $401 to $268 a piece; quite a drop!

The first Pentium II CPU's are multiplier unlocked which means you can set it to any multiplier you want. Overclockers use this technique to increase the clock-frequency of a CPU. However, increasing the multiplier on this particular Pentium II to 4x (which will result in a 266MHz CPU) caused the PC to not even boot up. What a lousy overclocker! > Read more

Intel Pentium II 266 'SL2HE'

The Pentium II came in a new sort of packaging with L2 cache built in. This was done in order to get the L2 cache closer to the CPU which is faster. The Pentium MMX ran in socket 7 which has L2 cache on the motherboard and thus the CPU can only communicate with it at the bus frequency (usually 66MHz). The Pentium II changed all that making it noticeably faster.

The Pentium II can access the L2 cache at 50% of the clock frequency of the CPU. In this case the L2 cache runs at 133MHz. > Read more