SSE3 (Streaming SIMD Extensions 3)
  • also known by its Intel code name Prescott New Instructions (PNI)
  • is the third iteration of the SSE instruction set for the x86 architecture
  • Intel introduced SSE3 in early 2004 with the Prescott revision of their Pentium 4 CPU
  • in April 2005, AMD introduced a subset of SSE3 in revision E (Venice and San Diego) of their Athlon 64 CPUs
  • the earlier SIMD instruction sets on the x86 platform, from oldest to newest, are:
    • MMX
    • 3DNow!
    • SSE
    • SSE2
  • SSE3 contains 13 new instructions over SSE2