Slot 2

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Slot 2 refers to the physical and electrical specification for the 330-lead edge-connector used by some of Intel's microprocessors, specifically the Pentium II Xeon and certain models of the Pentium III Xeon.

Slot 2 was introduced for use in high end multi-processor workstations and servers, while Slot 1 was intended for low end SMP and desktop use. Slot 2 CPUs were intended to replace the Pentium Pro series, and the first generation (Pentium II Xeon) were largely identical to them apart from the addition of the MMX instruction set, a faster FSB, improved 16 bit artithmetic performance, and higher clock speeds. However, like the Pentium Pro, the Xeon supported full speed L2 off die cache (while it was off die, it was on the same package). The Pentium 2 had a similar arrangement, but to save money, cheaper 3rd party SRAM chips were used, running at only half the CPU speed. Thus the 242 connector Slot 1 of the Pentium 2 did not support the full speed cache of the Xeon, so an extended 330 connector 'Slot 2' was developed, this was used for Pentium 2 Xeons, and the first two Pentium III Xeon cores, codenamed 'Tanner' and 'Cascades'. Slot 2 was finally replaced with the socket 370 'Tualatin' cored chips, oddly, some of these were packaged as 'Pentium 3' and some as 'Xeon', despite all being identical.

This article was originally based on material from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, which is licensed under the GFDL.