Type Slot FSB protocol GTL+, later AGTL+ Voltage range 1.3 to 3.3 V | Contacts 330 FSB frequency 100 MT/s, 133 MT/s | |
Chip form factors Single Edge Contact Cartridge | ||
Slot 2 refers to the physical and electrical specification for the 330-lead Single Edge Contact Cartridge (or edge-connector) used by some of Intel's Pentium II Xeon and certain models of the Pentium III Xeon.
When first introduced, Slot 1 Pentium IIs were intended to replace the Pentium and Pentium Pro processors in the home, desktop, and low-end symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) markets. The Pentium II Xeon, which was aimed at multiprocessor workstations and servers, was largely similar to the later Pentium IIIs, being based on the same P6 Deschutes core, aside from a wider choice of L2 cache ranging from 512 to 2048 KB and a full-speed off-die L2 cache (the Pentium 2 used cheaper third-party SRAM chips, running at 50% of CPU speed, to reduce cost).
Because the design of the 242-lead Slot 1 connector did not support the full-speed L2 cache of the Xeon, an extended 330-lead connector was developed. This new connector, dubbed 'Slot 2', was used for Pentium II Xeon and the first two Pentium III Xeon cores, codenamed 'Tanner' and 'Cascades'. Slot 2 was finally replaced with the Socket 370 with the Pentium III Tualatin; some of the Tualatin Pentium IIIs were packaged as 'Pentium III' and some as 'Xeon', though they were identical.