Pentium (original)
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| General information | |
|---|---|
| Launched | March 22, 1993 |
| Discontinued | July 15, 1999 (orders and shipments) |
| Marketed by | Intel |
| Designed by | Intel |
| Common manufacturer |
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| Product code |
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| Performance | |
| Max. CPU clock rate | 60–300 MHz |
| FSB speeds | 50 MHz to 66 MHz |
| Physical specifications | |
| Transistors | |
| Cores |
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| Sockets | |
| Cache | |
| L1 cache | 16–32 KiB |
| L2 cache | Up to 512 KiB (on mainboard) |
| Architecture and classification | |
| Technology node | 800 nm to 250 nm |
| Microarchitecture | P5 |
| Instruction set | x86-16, IA-32 |
| Extensions | |
| Products, models, variants | |
| Core names |
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| Models |
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| History | |
| Predecessor | i486 |
| Successors | Pentium II (high-end option) Celeron (low-end option) Pentium Pro (workstation and server options) |
| Support status | |
| Unsupported | |
The Pentium (also referred to as the i586 or P5 Pentium) is a microprocessor introduced by Intel on March 22, 1993. It is the first CPU using the Pentium brand. Considered the fifth generation in the x86 (8086) compatible line of processors, succeeding the i486 as the series flagship under the Intel brand, its implementation and microarchitecture was internally called P5.
Like the Intel i486, the Pentium is instruction set compatible with the 32-bit i386. It uses a very similar microarchitecture to the i486, but was extended enough to implement a dual integer pipeline design, as well as a more advanced floating-point unit (FPU) that was noted to be ten times faster than its predecessor.
The Pentium was succeeded at the workstation and server markets by the P6-based Pentium Pro in November 1995. In January 1997, the Pentium MMX was released, complementing the same basic microarchitecture of the original Pentium with the MMX instruction set, larger caches, and some other enhancements. It was succeeded at the top range by the Pentium II brand, while production of the P5 Pentium processors continued as low-end series until July 1999, when it was replaced by the Celeron processor, which had also replaced the 486 brand.