|
|
What does the E/B/EB mean after my CPU speed?
The whole E/B/EB naming convention is Intel's way of telling the difference between their original Pentium-III's (introduced in February 1999) and the various flavors of their second-generation Pentium-III's (introduced in September/October 1999) that happen to share the same clock speed.
The original Pentium-III's were built using the industry standard manufacturing process at that time, based on a 0.25µ trace size. Times have changed, the denser, more energy efficient 0.18µ size is the new standard and the process used for all new Pentium-III's and Xeons, now known as the Coppermine series. As some of these new 0.18µ processors operate at the same clock speed as the older 0.25µ chips, the 'E' distinguishes the newer, slightly faster CPUs:
Pentium III 500 > Old (0.25u)
Pentium III 500E > New (0.18u)
The 'B' designation identifies pre-Coppermine Pentium-III's (built using the older 0.25µ process) that run on a 133MHz system bus, rather than the original 100MHz bus:
Pentium III 600 > Old (100Mhz bus)
Pentium III 600B > New (133Mhz bus)
So, of course, 'EB' refers to the newer Coppermine Pentium-III's that run on a 133MHz bus.
This naming confusion only happens around Pentium-III's in the 500-600MHz range. All pre-Coppermine Pentium-III's are slower than this, so they shouldn't be mixed up with newer Coppermines that are faster.