Intel Pentium III E "Coppermine" (Slot-1)

3D Studio MAX is the perfect indication of a situation where the 133MHz FSB is necessary. Limited by the available bandwidth the Pentium III 500 – 600 (BX) fall in the last three places of this comparison. The Athlon 700’s 200MHz EV6 bus and its superior FPU keep it on top of the game but it is beginning to feel the threat posed by the Pentium III 733EB which was just five tenths of a second slower in our render tests.

The 133MHz FSB definitely helps the performance under 3D Studio MAX but the Pentium III E’s full speed L2 cache keeps the 100MHz FSB Pentium III Es competitive in the benchmark.

Clock for clock the Athlon is the faster CPU, but by a much lesser degree than they once were when Intel’s only competition was the lowly Pentium III 600. Another point worth taking notice of is the fact that Intel’s Pentium III 600B is useless now, the Pentium III 500E provides very similar performance at a lower clock speed and the Pentium III 550E provides greater performance at a still lower clock speed. This is while running on the 100MHz BX platform making the Pentium III B (600/533) a completely useless investment now with the release of the Pentium III E.