Intel's 15 Most Unforgettable x86 CPUs

[Guest]

Hey 🙂

There is an error with 386 Clock frequency.
The Clock frequency going from 16 MHz to 40 MHz and not only 33 MHz.

a 386DX40, is a 40 MHz cpu ;-)
 

 

[Guest]

Compared to Athlon, Pentium 4 is a big loser. So why is the Pentium 4 "unforgettable"?

It's unforgettable because it sucks big time. 😛

 

[wingless]

The Pentium's "rare" bug and ensuing media madness reminds me of AMD's TLB bug which got blown way out of proportion. I would really like to see a write-up like this for AMD or mixing both AMD and Intel's competitive history.

 

[Guest]

The space shuttle does not in fact run on 8086's. Spend ten seconds Googling and you'll find it. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/05/12/MN141658.DTL&type=tech "Troves of old parts that NASA uncovers and buys, officials said, are used not in the shuttles but in flotillas of servicing and support gear."

The shuttle uses a non-commodity IBM chip (AP-101S) for its flight computer. The shuttle's glass cockpit runs on 80386's. The Hubble Space Telescope runs on 80486's installed in the 1999 servicing mission. Low clock speeds, plus radiation hardening, improve reliability for flight-critical functions. Consumer laptops are flown in space for experiments, etc., and crash spontaneously from time to time due to random bit flips in the non-rad-hardened chips.

 

[kevinmcg]

Wow Nasa uses a 4.77MHZ chip on their space shuttles, that makes me want to be an astronaut! Seriously, maybe they should upgrade soon?

 

[garydale]

It seems to me that the article might better be titled "Intel's 15 Most Forgettable x86 CPUs". The early 16-bit x86s had that bizarre paged memory scheme that drove software developers to consume unsafe amounts of caffeine. Unfortunately that was carried over into the 32-bit models because they had to maintain backward compatibility. Moreover, the 8086 was hamstrung because IBM used the 8088 so few machines were ever sold using the 8086.

The 80386 was a decent enough CPU - indeed, the first really good one out of Intel but was quickly overshadowed by the essentially similar 80486 which was generally more of the same only faster. It's worth noting that while Intel was diddling with getting the Pentium to work, AMD was putting out faster 80486 models than Intel.

While the Pentium is today regarded as the lowest reasonable processor for useful work, the original Pentiums running at 60 and 66mhz were slower than competing 80486s from AMD. It wasn't until the second generation Pentiums that Intel actually had a processor worth talking about.

The Pentium II series running in Slot 1 boards are little more than a footnote. It wasn't until the Pentium III that Intel had a marketable desktop chip. Sadly their next step was the atrocious Pentium IV which, like Windows Vista, was an opportunity for their competitors to gain market share.

It's worth remembering that Intel wanted to drop the entire Pentium line until AMD's success with their Athlon 64s threatened Intel's position as the top CPU maker that Intel got back into the x86 market with some more forgettable chips.

Finally, they came up with another winner in the Core 2 Duo.

Me, I count about 4 unforgettables, the 80386, second generation Pentiums, Pentium III and Core 2 processors among a lot of forgettable - or best forgotten - desktop chips.

Another issue is the lack of discussion on the support chips. Some CPUs were saddled with pitiful support structure, often a result of standards being in flux, that really limited their appeal and their impact.

 

[Mach5Motorsport]

[citation][nom]johnlove[/nom]Compared to Athlon, Pentium 4 is a big loser. So why is the Pentium 4 "unforgettable"?[/citation]

Because it was a BIG loser for Intel and gave AMD a huge entry into the market. Thus, you can't forget the P4.

 

[Alkapwn]

You know there isn't much going on with hardware when articles like this, and Mac propaganda, hit Toms site.

 

[tom6667]

Nice article, except for some factual mistakes (which i am not used on tomshardware.com) - like you are missing the 386DX40 which was run at 40Mhz. The article states 33 Mhz as the max for 386 series.Please correct it.

 

[azides]

I'll not forget the first Intel powered PC I owned! Twas a 486 DX4-120.

Doh! crap! wrong company!

 

[Corporate_goon]

[citation][nom]Yuka[/nom]I might be wrong, but i resemble that the Pentium 166 (32bits adresshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address bus and all) had support for 4Gb of memory. I remember IBM sold it's top line (at that time) with 64Mb support (even with SDR PC100/66 support). Correct me if i'm wrong please.[/citation]

I don't really know what you mean by resembling a Pentium 166, but the amount of RAM the processor could physically address and the amount of RAM the chipset would address were different. There was also an issue with the Pentium (can't remember if this was processor- or chipset-related) where it would disable the L2 cache if you installed more than 64MB of RAM, which made going up to 128MB pretty pointless.

 

[captaincharisma]

i remember my old 386 computer. when you start it up it would do the ram check and it would give you the option to press the escape key to make it go faster

 

[Otaku]

2 errors I spotted.


The 486SX was not a processor without FPU, actually it was exactly the same processor as a 486DX with the FPU disabled. Slight but important diference.

The Pentium MMX processors are not P55, they are P54C.


Otherwise, cool article.

 

[Otaku]

[citation][nom]DK-Turbo[/nom]Hey 🙂There is an error with 386 Clock frequency.The Clock frequency going from 16 MHz to 40 MHz and not only 33 MHz.a 386DX40, is a 40 MHz cpu ;-) [/citation]

Actually it's not an error, cause the only 386DX40 was an AMD chip, not Intel.

 

[Guest]

well.... v have seen soo much progress in technology ...!
v had 8085 microprocessor as one of the subject this semester in the college...!
its a contrast v had to face...!
and v have 8086 coming semester!

i dont know when v will have cor 2duo in our syllabus ..lolzz

 

[waffle911]

[citation][nom]madhudvs[/nom]well.... v have seen soo much progress in technology ...!v had 8085 microprocessor as one of the subject this semester in the college...! its a contrast v had to face...!and v have 8086 coming semester!i dont know when v will have cor 2duo in our syllabus ..lolzz[/citation]

There was no Pentium V to get excited about, so why use V instead of "we"??

 

[kees1869]

I'd rather forget all of them and intel, what a lousy architecture... Then again I'd also would love to forget Microsoft, but they won't let me... How did this ever happen?!?

 

[Guest]

it's great that u posted my history
i own-ed each of time during my own timeline......heheheh

 

[amrs]

[citation][nom]Otaku[/nom]2 errors I spotted.The 486SX was not a processor without FPU, actually it was exactly the same processor as a 486DX with the FPU disabled. Slight but important diference.[/citation]

Only in the beginning. I clearly remember reading somewhere back then that Intel set up a separate production line after the 486SX took off. New die with no FPU to get more chips per wafer and hence lower cost. Makes sense, the main competition at the time was AMD's 40 MHz 386.

 

[hakkafusion]

@ theLaminator - 1.5hrs battery life with 3.0ghz isn't that bad. I only get about 2 hrs with my TL-56 x2 lol

Prescott wasn't all that bad.. with a decent hsf, it runs... fine.?
the 3.0ghz runs cpu based applications faster than my 1.8ghz centrino and my 1.6ghz Turion 64 x2. Not to mention my Prescott are still running strong 2day, even after 3 yrs.

Ofc, u can't compare it to the new c2ds =b the e6750 I using now pwns. =)

I have always used intel, until my Turion that is...
486, 486DX2, 586, P2, Northwood, Prescott, now Conroe, they all served me well =)

 

[MORECPU]

I think this statement is wrong "8086: The First PC processor"
Just FYI, the first IBM PC was an 8080 at 4.77Mhz not an 8086.

 

[thought]

This does not appear to be Intel's most memorable processors but an article describing the greater series of processors that Intel has produced. I would expect this information to be found on an information depository such as an technological encyclopedia, or a site/book on Intel's history rather than an article on Tom's Hardware. Great article none the less.

 

[NightLight]

I'm proud to say I still own all these processors, most of them even in the original box Good to see this kind of review, makes me feel a little younger

 

[Brutuz1000and1]

Erm, you say "The Pentium III Coppermine was the first commercial x86 processor from Intel to attain a clock speed of 1 GHz"

Wasn't the Athlon the first to Break 1Ghz?

Maybe you meant "The Pentium III was the first Intel processor to break 1 GFLOPS, with a theoretical performance of 2 GFLOPS."

 

[Guest]

CAN IT RUN CRYSIS?