Foreword: On July 27, 2006, Intel announced globally that its desktop microprocessor products have entered a new "Core" era. The debut of the Core 2 processor has ignited countless DIY computer enthusiasts enthusiasm, when processor fans around the world focus on Core 2, perhaps we should also pay attention to the fact that on the same day, Intel officially announced the Pentium era that has dominated the desktop processor field for 13 years. It's over. Regardless of whether you are a new or old computer user, as long as you know something about PCs, I believe you will be familiar with the keyword Pentium. There is no doubt that the Pentium brand has a prominent position in the field of microprocessors. Over the years, it has Pentium is synonymous with processors, and even computers. Pentium, which has become history, is still the most important product in the history of Intel microprocessor products, and it is also a capital worth being proud of. The history of the Pentium series of processors can almost be regarded as the modern history of the PC. Especially for domestic users, the vast majority of PC users started to get into contact with computers from the Pentium era. However, starting from 2006, Pentium products will gradually Fading out of people's sight, a generation of heroes finally came to an end. There is a famous saying in China: All banquets in the world cannot last forever. After all, Pentium cannot become an eternal myth. In the past ten years or so, Pentium products have gone through several generations of changes. Let us once again take a look at Pentium, which is about to retire from the stage of history. Pentium era. 1. The birth of Pentium: The beginning of its impact on the global IT industry Back to 13 years ago, Pentium was not actually launched as a major product that Intel had been brewing for a long time. In fact, in the 1970s and 1980s, the desktop microprocessors launched by Intel were named after 8086, 286, 386 and 486. At that time, when PCs were not yet popular around the world, the awareness of brand technology patents was not as strong as it is today, so its competitor AMD also used this method to name its products.

The first-generation Pentium microprocessor has a main frequency of 60MHz and only 3.1 million transistors. After entering the 1990s, PCs developed very quickly in developed countries, and Intel undoubtedly saw the hidden consequences. There are unlimited business opportunities, so Intel decided to part ways with AMD on its 80586 product and registered the Pentium trademark for 80586. Since then, Pentium has been promoted as a brand to every corner of the world. The 80586 (Pentium) was released on March 22, 1993. , the first generation product, it was it that Intel could not predict, and the Pentium era that affected the global IT industry was born.

2. Taking advantage of MMX, the Pentium territory further expanded. The launch of the first-generation Pentium achieved unprecedented success, and Intel became more determined to embark on an independent development path for processors. In fact, not only the desktop field, but also the server and workstation fields have used this as a guiding ideology. The power of Pentium's brand has penetrated into various fields. AMD and Cyrix have since embarked on the bitter journey of followers. In fact, the development path of Pentium has not been smooth sailing. In order to completely get rid of the entanglement between AMD and Cyrix, Intel not only got rid of the product naming, but also rose to the interface level. Equipped with the P6 bus protocol and Socket8 interface, the Pentium Pro processor came into being in 1995. From a technical point of view, the Pentium Pro was definitely a terrifying product at the time. Its 80-bit floating point unit, branch prediction and other functions were very advanced, and it also realized 32-bit memory addressing. In addition, Pentimu Pro has unprecedentedly packaged a 256KB second-level cache chip within the chip. The two chips are interconnected with a high-bandwidth internal communication bus, and the connection lines between the processor and the cache are also placed in the package. , which makes it easier for the cache to run at higher frequencies. However, from a market perspective, Pentium Pro appears to be a complete failure. At that time, 32-bit applications were not mainstream, and even in 16-bit applications, Pentium Pro could not show obvious performance advantages.

The Pentium Pro that was too advanced also paid a heavy price due to its high cost, and it also gave AMD and Cyrix an extremely important breathing space because of the delay in new product development. ?At the same time, Cyrix 5X86 is also catching up. But objectively speaking, Cyrix was already in decline at this time. The contemporary Cyrix 5X86 had a large gap in overall performance with Pentium and AMD's K5. Pentium Pro's mistakes did not hinder Pentium's forward momentum. What really made Pentium "carry forward" in front of the world should be the Pentium MMX processor. Nowadays, countless masters started from the MMX era, and it was Intel processors that took the lead in the country. A critical year for mass popularization. In mid-1996, due to the high price of the Pentimu Pro, Intel was unable to take advantage of the mainstream market, so it launched the Pentium MMX (Multiple Pentium) to occupy the mainstream market. MMX is a new technology adopted by Intel in 1996 to enhance the Pentium CPU in audiovisual, graphics and communication applications, adding 57 MMX instructions to the CPU. In addition to adding MMX instructions to the instruction set, the L1 cache in the CPU chip is increased from the original 16KB to 32KB (16K instructions + 16K data). At that time, PCs were in a stage of rapid popularization, and the birth of the concept of home computers gave rise to multimedia applications. The MMX instruction set obviously seized this opportunity well. In fact, the built-in instruction set in the CPU is a shortcut to development, and facts have proven that its effect is quite significant. After the application software is specially optimized for MMX, the execution efficiency has been greatly improved. The most typical example is the VCD soft decompression at that time: at the same frequency, the Pentiun 166MMX with the MMX instruction set performed about 50% higher than the Pentium 166, allowing soft decompression of VCDs to achieve smooth speeds. On the other hand, the cache architecture of Pentium MMX has also been greatly improved. At this time, the overall performance is significantly ahead of the first generation Pentium, and the maturity of the 0.35 micron process has initially solved the cost problem, thus truly ushering in the peak of popularity.

3. Pentium II laid a solid foundation for the Pentium era. When all aspects of technology and market matured, Pentium brand products naturally developed into the second generation stage. In 1997, in order to further attack competitors, Intel boldly used more innovative designs on Pentium II. Pentium II can be said to be a perfect combination of the essence of Pentimu Pro and MMX technology. On the Pentium II, Intel changed the clumsy and power-hungry bipolar hardware of the past BiCMOS manufacturing process and compressed 7.5 million transistors onto a 203mm2 die. Therefore, in terms of volume, Pentium II is not much larger than Pentium Pro, but it contains 2 million more transistors than Pentium Pro. Pentium II not only provides excellent 32-bit performance, but also has excellent 16-bit performance, bringing the entire CPU industry completely into the 32-bit era. The first-generation Pentium II ran on a 66MHz bus, and the second-generation product's system bus was 100MHz. Pentium II uses a half-speed 512K secondary cache, L1Cache is 32K, and adopts the latest Solt1 patented interface standard for the first time, blocking competitors AMD and Cyrix from the patent gate. ?However, it must be pointed out that Pentium II further reveals the already prominent cost contradiction. Due to the adoption of the Slot1 interface, cost control has almost become an empty talk. During this critical period, both AMD and Cyrix identified Intel's weaknesses and focused on low prices. The K6 processor increases the frequency to 300MHz. At this time, the overall performance is not inferior to the expensive Pentium II 233/266MHz, and the price of both the CPU and the motherboard is significantly lower.

From a technical and market perspective, Pentium II was undoubtedly successful, but it overdrawn Intel's future market space. Intel, which was not stubborn, finally faced the market demand and launched the Celeron product that people are no longer familiar with. However, The integer performance of the first generation L2 cached Celeron processors was unsatisfactory. 4. Pentium III shaped the brilliance of the Pentium era. Since the Pentium II era, Intel has adopted the market strategy of focusing on mid- to high-end Pentium series processors and focusing on mid-to-low-end Celeron series processors. The image of Pentium has been theoretically improved again because it is a A hallmark of high-end PCs. However, in the Chinese market, the mid-to-low-end market is the main battlefield for the consumer army. After the initial pain of the first-generation Celeron, it was still able to turn the tide in the second-generation Celeron. At that time, the 128KB second-level cache Celeron A AMD's dream of mid-to-low-end hegemony was shattered, and its better overclocking performance even threatened the status of Pentium II. The high-end and low-end combination of Pentium + Celeron gave Intel a taste of the sweetness. After two years, Intel released the third generation Pentium processor again in 1999. This is the classic Pentium III. The early PentiumIII and PentiumII adopted similar closed solutions. The high-cost solution was criticized in both technology and market. Then Intel returned to the Socket interface platform again, and together with the later Tualatin Celeron, they created a system that is still talked about by many DIY players. Tao's Pentium III dynasty.

Tualatin Pentium III with 512KB L2 cache However, what is worthy of attention during this period is that the glory of Pentium III is not based on AMD's weakness. On the contrary, AMD has also made great progress at this stage. Thunderbird The series laid a solid foundation at that time and was very helpful in reversing AMD's performance image. Even in a frequency war to seize the GHz main frequency mark, AMD took the lead in making the Thunderbird processor achieve the landmark 1GHz. However, Intel’s market manipulation ability is too powerful, and its platform solutions have also allowed Intel to occupy upstream resources. Objectively speaking, Pentium III should be able to reach a more glorious state. However, due to product line replacement issues, Pentium III finally chose to give way to Pentium 4 and withdrew from the stage of history "early". Its lifespan can be said to be the shortest in the Pentium era. , left with "grievance" in 2000, when the frequency war dominated.

5. Pentium 4/Pentium D becomes the last song of the Pentium era. It can be said that Pentium 4 is the most controversial product in the Pentium series, but it has the longest history in the Pentium era. For more than 6 years, Pentium 4 has been Intel's main force in mid-to-high-end products. Objectively speaking, Pentium 4 has made great contributions to Intel in the past of Frequency Heroism, and it is also the most successful product in the advertising war. In China, a large number of friends who entered the DIY field started in the era of Pentium 4. Although the final choice may be a Celeron product, the popularity of Pentium 4 is definitely better than that of previous Pentium products. Especially in China, desktop manufacturers played a very important role in promoting Pentium 4, which once made Pentium 4 deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Pentium 4 can be said to be Intel's "golden brand" in recent years, but it was not all smooth sailing in the early stages of its development. The first-generation Willamette core was criticized. For the new NetBurst structure, powerful performance requires a higher clock speed and a powerful cache structure, which the Willamette core does not have. 256KB L2 cache is obviously insufficient, and the overall performance at this time is greatly affected. However, the most embarrassing thing for Intel is that the Willamette core Pentium4 1.5G is not even as good as the Tualatin core Pentium III. In some tests, even the overclocked Tualatin Celeron can surpass it.

Willamette core Pentium 4 However, in the subsequent frequency war, Intel was still able to keep the face of the giant. The comprehensive performance of high-frequency products with NetBurst architecture is still real, coupled with Intel's powerful upstream manufacturer control capabilities , even if AMD has equally excellent products and even has a greater advantage in some products in the same price range, it still cannot compete with Intel. Before 2003, every frequency increase of Pentium 4 brought heavy losses to competitors. of blow. But AMD's K7 architecture was also developing at that time, and the Barton core put Intel into a passive position. Intel's long-standing leading advantage was shaken. We can even give such a clear conclusion: Intel's NetBurst architecture played an indispensable role in the frequency war. Disputable advantages, but looking at the overall performance of the architecture itself, especially in the face of AMD's very good K7, the NetBurst architecture does not have much to be proud of. If it weren't for Intel's strong market control capabilities, today's CPUs The market landscape may be different. Intel is naturally aware of such problems, but the NetBurst architecture has taken steps forward and cannot be stopped. To this end, Intel has to continue to increase the main frequency and increase the secondary cache capacity. But what makes Intel very embarrassed is that now the processor manufacturing process is beginning to face bottlenecks. Even with the 65-nanometer process, it will be extremely difficult to achieve high clock speeds in the NetBurst architecture in the future. This means that the NetBurst architecture will not be able to continue to rely on the main frequency in the future. Frequency advantage to rival competitors. In addition, the huge cache capacity is also a burden, which not only increases the cost, but also causes the heat generation to rise sharply. If it weren't for Intel's good market public relations and reputation, Intel processors would have been in embarrassment long ago, because nowadays high-frequency Pentium is simply synonymous with high heat generation and high power consumption, and even Celeron D is scalding hot.

Pentium 4 with NorthWood core When the NetBurst architecture Pentium 4 with Prescott core was finally launched, people had clearly felt that this product was at the end of its game. After using this core in an epoch-making dual-core processor product, Its power consumption and heat generation make NetBurst's reputation even worse. AMD's K8 series has gradually won more and more users with its excellent gaming performance and cost-effectiveness. All this indicates that Intel must undergo an architectural baptism.

6. Turning the tide: Core ends Pentium. Intel’s most successful product in the past six years is actually not Pentium 4, but Pentium M, which has an absolute advantage in the mobile field. The first-generation Pentium M processor with Banias core Computers were Intel's main force in the mobile market from 2003 to mid-2004. In the past, mobile processors have always been inferior to desktop processors in terms of performance, but this time the situation will be different. Banias is equipped with 1MB of secondary cache, and its performance reaches 140% or higher of Pentium4-M at the same frequency. After using the 0.13 micron manufacturing process, Banias can integrate 77 million transistors, and the power consumption is very low. The performance of Banias is very surprising. It uses a lot of new technologies. Among them, ACG (Aggressive Clock Gating, active clock selection) can automatically adjust the operating frequency of the CPU and stop supplying clock signals to unused parts of the processor to reduce power consumption. , when the execution unit tasks are not heavy, turning off some units or reducing the overall clock frequency can save a lot of power. In particular, Intel launched the Dothan-core Pentium M mobile processor in 2004, using a 90-nanometer manufacturing process. The biggest feature of Dothan is the use of Enhanced CG (Aggressive Clock Gating, active clock selection) technology, which can automatically adjust the CPU's operating frequency more intelligently, allowing the notebook battery to last more than 5 hours. In terms of performance, Dothan not only improved the motherboard but also built in a 2MB large-capacity second-level cache. The overall performance is perfect.

Obtaining high performance with low power consumption is the essential advantage of Pentium M. In fact, the guiding ideology of Core comes from Pentium M. It introduces mobile products with excellent architecture to the desktop field, while at the same time changing from passive to proactive and high-profile publicity of power consumption. Performance ratio, Intel made this move very correctly