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Intel's Pentium Chip Turns 20 Today

Posted by Soulskill on from the and-many-moore dept.

girlmad writes "Intel's Pentium processor was launched 20 years ago today, a move that led to the firm becoming the dominant supplier of computer chips across the globe. This article has some original iComp benchmark scores, rating the 66MHz Pentium at a heady 565, compared with 297 for the 66MHz 486DX2, which was the fastest chip available prior to the Pentium launch."

11 of 197 comments (clear)

  1. 0.99904274017st post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    fdiv bug

    1. Re:0.99904274017st post by dkleinsc · · Score: 4, Funny

      So what you're saying is that it's really the 19.9808548034th anniversary?

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
  2. Ahh, Pentium. by ZorinLynx · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The 66MHz original Pentium. What a beast.

    It ran on a full TTL +5V. So it sucked down power. Lots of power. I've disassembled first generation Pentium chips, removing the golden cover that protects the die beneath. The die is HUGE! Much bigger than any current production CPU.

    In fact, the early models produced so much heat that we boggled at the big fans needed to cool them! It was one of the first Intel x86 chips that REQUIRED a fan for cooling. We used to run our 486DX2/66 and below fanless and they worked great.

    All this for only less than twice the performance, at three times the cost.

    The vast majority of us skipped the first generation Pentium, instead going for more affordable chips as the i486DX4/100 and the Am5x86/133, which was RIDICULOUSLY popular for several years! In fact, the latter was faster than a Pentium 75MHz for anything that didn't require the FPU. And not much needed the FPU back then.

    Then of course we laughed our asses off when the FDIV flaw became known. Clearly the Pentium was the #0.9999999998855 processor on the market!

    Ahh, memories.

    1. Re:Ahh, Pentium. by ZorinLynx · · Score: 4, Informative

      For quite a bit of time, Intel and AMD CPUs used the same motherboards and chipsets. You'd get the motherboard you want, and then decide whether you wanted an Intel or AMD CPU in there.

      In fact, the whole reason for "Slot 1" with the Pentium II was to put a stop to this. They patented the slot mechanism and locked AMD out. I'm not sure why they couldn't patent the socket type; I'm guessing there was a legal reason why the pin arrangements weren't patentable.

    2. Re:Ahh, Pentium. by ZorinLynx · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I wonder if you had a cacheless 486 system. These were very common in the early 90s! There were even "fake cache" chips that motherboard vendors would put in to make it look like you had cache when you didn't.

      I suffered with such a system for a long time before realizing that it had no cache. I always wondered why my friend's 486 system felt so much faster, then I finally read about the cache issue in a magazine! Those were different times, when you couldn't just use Google to get an instant answer as to why something sucks.

      Being a broke teenager, I suffered with that cacheless 486SX/25 (overclocked to 33) from 1993 until 1996 when I finally got a job and upgraded to a Pentium 166MHz. It was like getting out of slow computer prison. :)

    3. Re:Ahh, Pentium. by MBCook · · Score: 4, Informative

      No, Slot 1 was to allow them to put the cache on the same board as the processor so they could speed it up. It quickly became unnecessary as later Pentium IIs and all(?) Pentium IIIs put the cache on die, making the slot unnecessary and expensive.

      --
      Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
  3. It's all about the pentiums, baby! by Kemanorel · · Score: 4, Informative

    From his royal Weirdness...

    All About the Pentiums

    --
    Mess not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.
  4. Re:66MHz? Nice for you Rockefellers by erice · · Score: 4, Informative

    The rest of us made do with 60MHz versions.

    It really had to hurt Intel to have to back down on clock speeds for once. They didn't do that again until NetBurst burst.

    And they did it for the same reason. The 60Mhz Pentium was the end of the line for 5V CPU's. It suffered from overheating problems due to its exceptionally high power consumption. The P90, 486DX2 and later Pentiums were 3.3V.

    It is also questionable the the P66 dethroned the 486DX2. The 50Mhz 486DX was widely believed to be faster than the 66Mhz 486DX2.

  5. Re:66MHz? Nice for you Rockefellers by SJHillman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I still have a P90 that I use for old games. It runs Windows 98 like a beast, although my Cyrix P166+ naturally blows it away.
    The P90 has a dual 3.5"/5.25" floppy drive and a 2X CD-ROM drive. The part that surprises most people is that there is no cooling fan on the processor heatsink or power supply, just a small one on the back of the case.

  6. Re:Any old timers remember the Pentium 50 Mhz? by TuringCheck · · Score: 4, Funny
    I remember one of my teachers arriving in class and saying "I have a '486 in my pocket!"

    We all went "Wow!", "Cool!", "Can I see it?"

    So he extracts a 7486 IC from his pocket.

    Some people are mean...

  7. Perspective by Paperweight · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you performed a calculation that took a week to complete on a modern Core i7 2600k, you'd still be waiting for your Pentium 1 to finish the same calculation even with a 20 year head start!

    Source