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Building a PC? Shopping for a central processing unit?
Building a PC? Shopping for a central processing unit?
On Oct. 13, 1998 at the Microprocessor Forum in San Jose, CA, Intel and its CPU-building competitors announced next-generation processor designs -- some of which have since shown up in computers, some which are still forthcoming, and a few that will probably never see the light of day.
Advanced Micro Devices, better known as AMD, made one of the biggest splashes with its announcement of the K7 design -- a radically new move from a company that, for most of its history, kept its designs compatible with the sockets used in Pentium-compatible PCs. The new chip, released as the Athlon, was the fastest Intel-compatible chip on the market for much of 1999. Initially released at speeds starting at 500 MHz, it does not use an Intel Pentium- or Pentium II-design system bus. Still, AMD Athlon-based systems remain less common than other Intel-based designs, as a small number of PC motherboard and companion chip vendors build products based on this so-called "Slot A" design. Less radical was the 400 MHz K6-2 chips shipped in Q4'98 and the K6-3, running at 450 MHz when it first shipped in Q1'99. As is the case with virtually all CPUs, recent models have increased these clock speeds.
Intel, meanwhile, announced new details on its variant of the Pentium II code-named Katmai, released in the first quarter of 1999 as the Pentium III. The Katmai processors include improved multimedia capabilities, enhancing both 2D video and 3D graphics. The new instructions, as successors to Intel's current "MMX" instruction set, are sometimes referred to as "MMX 2" or "SSE" instructions.
The PIII was followed by a chip code-named Coppermine in the Fall of 1999. Our Coppermine report has details on this improved PIII design. A revised version of the Xeon, code-named Cascades, for desktop and server applications, respectively, is also slated for release in 1999.
By mid-2000, Intel expects to be shipping its first 64-bit processor -- a chip originally code-named Merced, and now officially dubbed Itanium. Intel also provided some details on the "Williamette" (also 32-bit) and "Foster" (32-bit again) chips it expects to succeed the Pentium II and Xeon families at speeds up to 1 Gigahertz (!) by 2001 and beyond. News.com has additional details.
Indeed, according to early reports, Itanium looks to be a huge leap forward in processing power. According to an article on news.com quoting Stephen Smith, the vice president of Intel's microprocessor products group, the new chip's floating point unit will deliver 20 times the 3D graphics performance of a Pentium Pro's floating point processor and will be three times faster than the one in Tanner.
Intel is already working on chips more advanced than Itanium. Next in line will be a processor code-named McKinley. This chip will, Intel says, achieve twice the performance of Itanium and is expected to run at speeds starting around 1 GHz (1000 MHz).
In a presentation at the Microprocessor Forum, Stephen Smith, the vice president of Intel's microprocessor products group, described two additional IA-64 architecture devices that will follow. Said Smith, "We will move forward to 0.13-micron technology with a product code-named Madison." Due around 2002, this CPU will be aimed at high-end workstation and server applications. Following it will be an IA-64 CPU currently code-named Deerfield. This chip, Intel says, will be a "price/performance processor." EETimes has more details.
National Semiconductor, which now owns Cyrix, wasn't standing still in Oct. 98 either, but it didn't have the market momentum of its primary competitors, and fell out of the market in '99, as its owner National Semiconductor announced that Cyrix would cease production of CPUs destined for the consumer market. Prior to this announcement the company had been pinning its hopes on a chip it called the M3, originally expected to debut in the 600-800 MHz range, along with a chip code-named Jalapeno, planned to start in the 600 MHz range, in the fourth quarter of 1999.
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