Microprocessor

Depending on the motherboard speed, the processor speed will vary. e.g. : With 33 MHz motherboard speed, a DX 4 processor will run at 100 MHz. If motherboard speed is 16 MHz , the DX 4 will run at 48 MHz.

On 19 Oct 1992, Intel released the V th generation chip - Pentium. It uses superscalar technology - have the capability to execute two instructions at the same time using twin data pipelines. Thus Pentium is like two 486 chips under the hood. Pentium second generation released in 1994 runs at 200 MHz, 32 bit register, 64 bit data bus, 4 Gb memory, 8+8 kB cache, 3.1 million transistotrs, 296 pin SPGA (Staggered Pin Grid Array), built in FPU (Math processor), 2 to 10 times faster than 486, Op. voltage 2.9 V. As the operational voltage is reduced, the power consumption and heat produced is reduced. Uses BiCMOS technology to reduce power consumption (10 to 15 W).

Some Pentium II processors runs at different voltages. So an onboard voltage regulator module (VRM) has been designed to power the CPU. Intel Celeron outperforms Pentium II at the same speed and at a lower cost. Faster Xeon processor uses 2 MB L2 cache.

FPU bug in Pentium : While working with MS Excel,
962306957033/11010046=87402.6282027341, this result is not reached. It caused Intel to replace all of its processors showing the bug.

Pentium !!! runs at 1 GHz, bus speed of 133 MHz, 256 k L2 cache, 75 C op. temp, 1.75 V, 29 W, 28.1 million transistors.