<https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/intel-released-its-first-pentium-chip-on-this-day-33-years-ago-came-packing-3-1-million-transistors-fifth-gen-x86-chip-built-on-an-800nm-process>
One thing that article doesn?t mention was how enormous the chip
package was -- it was about the size of a VHS videocassette.
1993 was also the year the Apple-IBM-Motorola alliance first showed
off their PowerPC chips. Those initial 60- and 66-MHz Pentiums were
the butt of merciless jokes, not just over their inferior performance,
but how it looked even worse if you compared performance per watt of
power consumed.
About a year or two later, Intel switched to a new fab process, and
brought out the Pentium-90. That?s when the tables started to turn
against PowerPC.
On 2026-03-22, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
1993 was also the year the Apple-IBM-Motorola alliance first showed
off their PowerPC chips. Those initial 60- and 66-MHz Pentiums were
the butt of merciless jokes, not just over their inferior performance,
but how it looked even worse if you compared performance per watt of
power consumed.
Don't forget its IEEE754 operation performance, especially where
division is concerned :-P
On 2026-03-22, Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 2026-03-22, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
1993 was also the year the Apple-IBM-Motorola alliance first showed
off their PowerPC chips. Those initial 60- and 66-MHz Pentiums were
the butt of merciless jokes, not just over their inferior performance,
but how it looked even worse if you compared performance per watt of
power consumed.
Don't forget its IEEE754 operation performance, especially where
division is concerned :-P
"I am Pentium of Borg. Division is futile. You will be approximated."
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