Inside the Machine

Conclusions

While the 970’s group dispatch scheme does suffer from some of the drawbacks described in the preceding section, it must be judged a success in terms of its impact on the processor’s performance per watt. That this dispatch scheme has a significant positive impact on performance per watt is evidenced by the fact that Intel’s Pentium M processor also uses a similar grouping mechanism to achieve greater power efficiency. Furthermore, Intel continues to employ this grouping mechanism more extensively with each successive revision of the Pentium M, as the company seeks to minimize power consumption without sacrificing number-crunching capabilities. Thus such grouping mechanisms will only become more widespread as microprocessor designers ...