The specifications on the P3-450 match the Pentium(r) 2-450 CPU it's meant to replace for the most part, with two notable exceptions:

The P3's SECC2 cartridge format, and 70 new SIMD instructions designed to aid software developers in accelerating the already-competent floating point unit the Pentium(r) 3 is equipped with.

SECC2, or Single Edge Contact Cartridge, is the term that Intel(r) uses to describe the P3's "topless" case design. Much like the Intel(r) Celeron(tm) CPU product line, the Pentium(r) III allows a heatsink/fan to come into direct contact with the CPU's core. This wasn't possible previously with the Pentium(r) 2 CPU line, with its fully enclosed SECC format.

During heat monitoring tests we found that the SECC2 design serves the P3 well, it operated at a lower temperature than a standard P2-450 CPU while running identical benchmarks in an identical machine. The heat reduction wasn't spectacular, but it was tangible (about 5 degrees Celsius lower).

The 70 Pentium(r) 3-specific instructions have been named "SSE" by Intel(r), and they promise to revolutionize the way software titles are written.

Several game developers Sharky Extreme talked to the past month are excited about the performance gains associated with SSE, but they're quick to remind listeners that video card manufacturers still have to create SSE-optimized drivers to capitalize on the Intel(r) instruction set.

When the SSE-equipped video drivers are in place, and the software application being run has been written to take advantage of SSE, the results can be dramatic. In our own testing, Ziff-Davis' much maligned 3D WinBench 99 showed an improvement of over 40% when running the SSE-supporting Lighting and Transformation Geometry Test that the suite includes versus a P2-450 running the test without the benefits of SSE. Not too shabby, but 3D WinBench isn't exactly a real-world game engine either…..