As the .18micron "Coppermine" class of Pentium III CPUs debuts in November of 99, we'll be completely revamping this overclocking guide to reflect and chart the changes that will be occurring with the new CPUs.

For a preview of what's to come concerning Coppermine, and the overclocking nuances it will provide, here's a short list of changes versus today's Deschutes class P3 CPUs:

Deschutes P3 .25 Micron core 32KB L1 Cache 512KB off-die ½ core speed L2 Cache 100MHz Front Side Bus

Coppermine P3 .18 Micron core 64KB L1 Cache 256KB on-die full speed L2 Cache 133MHz Front Side Bus

As the specs above show there will be a lot of changes in the way we overclock P3 CPUs when the Coppermine parts arrive, and most of them are positive ones.

For one, the fact that the micron manufacturing level is shrinking is great, usually this means that a semiconductor will be better able to manage its heat load, something that's always a plus in overclocking.

Likewise the move of the L2 cache to being on-die in the Coppermine P3s could really offer fantastic new potential for high MHz overclocks as the current off-die L2 cache on the Deschutes P3s is very limited as to how far you can push its speed.

We'll know more about the new dawn of overclocking procedures that Coppermine will bring when we're allowed to write about the part in more depth later this year. Until then, let this current version of the Sharky Extreme P3 Overclocking Guide be your complete reference for attaining new high-speed bliss.

The Pentium III CPU line debuted in the last week of February 1999. At that time two models were introduced and made available for purchase: The P3-450 and the P3-500. Both the new parts offered subtle yet powerful improvements over the aging Pentium II CPU line, particularly with the inclusion of the floating point optimized instructionset named SSE (Streaming SIMD Extensions).

SSE allows software developers to streamline the utilization of the floating point unit on the P3s for accelerated 3D graphics generation and handling.

We've experimented with a few SSE-enabled gaming benchmarks like Rage's upcoming "Dispatched" title, as well as the latest benchmark from FutureMark Inc, 3DMark99 MAX. In both cases the frame rates produced by the inclusion of support for the SSE instructionset offered dramatic gains up to 35% higher than with a Pentium II running at the same clock speed.

With id software's impressive looking Quake3: Arena title supporting SSE out of the box when it arrives on store shelves later this year, the optimized instructionset's future and importance for gaming are virtually guaranteed.