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What Do You Want to Know About CPU's |
The most popular processors in PCs today are the Pentium series from Intel Corp. and comparable chips from American Micro Devices (AMD) and Cyrix. The Pentium was unveiled in 1993, the Pentium Pro in 1995. An enhanced Pentium chip, called Pentium MMX, introduced in early 1997, incorporates a set of instructions that improves multimedia and communication. The Pentium II, a Pentium Pro chip with MMX technology, was introduced in May 1997 and has clock speeds at 233MHz and 266MHz.
A guide to the latest PC processors/CPUs:
Intel Pentium 75-, 100-, 120-, 133-, 150-, 166-, 200MHz 16K primary cache
Pentium Pro (P54C) 166-, 188-, 200MHz 32K primary cache
Pentium MMX (P55C) MMX 166-, 200MHz 32K primary cache
Pentium II (Klamath) MMX 233-, 266MHz 64K primary cache
AMD K5 (x86) 100-, 120-, 133-, 150-, 166MHz 16K primary cache
K6 (x86) MMX PR-166-, PR-200-, PR-233MHz 64K primary cache
K6 (x86) MMX PR2-... (due later in '97)
Cyrix 6x86 (x86) (M1) 100-, 120-, 133-, 150-, 166MHz 16K primary cache
6x86MX (x86) (M2) MMX 166MHz and up 64K primary cache
Today's Macintosh machines use the PowerPC chip, developed jointly by Motorola, IBM and Apple. The older Motorola 68000 series has been recently phased out by Apple. Low-end PowerPC 601 and 603 chips run at speeds ranging from 66MHz to 120MHz. High-end 603e, 604 and 604e chips range from 100MHz all the way up to 300MHz.
Computers using Digital Equipment Corp.'s Alpha chips are used mainly as high-end workstations or workgroup servers. With processor speeds of up to 500MHz, Alpha machines can run Windows NT, OpenVMS and Digital's OSF/1 operating systems.
Inside the chips
The main difference between the processors in PCs and Macs is chip architecture, or the length and number of instructions the chips can follow. The Pentium and 486 PC processors are Complex Instruction Set Computers (CISC), and run standard business applications under DOS, Windows 3.1 and Windows 95.
The PowerPC and Alpha chips are Reduced Instruction Set Computers (RISC) and usually run engineering, scientific and graphics applications under Unix or the Mac operating system. RISC processors excel at floating-point instructions, making them strong choices for graphics applications, which many popular Mac applications exploit.
In time, the CISC/RISC debate may become irrelevant. Intel's new Pentium Pro incorporates both architectures; they take CISC instructions and break them down into RISC-like instructions. Also, Intel and Hewlett-Packard Co. are currently collaborating on a hybrid chip that can accept both RISC and CISC instructions. If that chip sets a standard, it could accelerate a slow but inevitable shift toward RISC-optimized software. Jeff Prosise of PC Magazine elaborates:
In general, RISC designers have been quick to adopt cutting-edge technologies
such as on-chip code and data caches, superscalar designs, instruction
pipelining, and branch prediction logic--anything to give their chips a
performance boost. But Intel has incorporated the same technologies, so
it's difficult to distinguish RISC from CISC on the basis of those features.
Many motherboards have temperature sensors under the CPU socket to measure the temperature of both the motherboard and the CPU. Their accuracy varies, depending on the processor. This is common in many motherboards, and if your BIOS is telling you about it it's most undoubtedly the motherboard's temperature sensors. The best way to find out if your motherboard has this temperature feature is to go to the manufacturer's web site.
You should check with your motherboard manufacturer. Generally, they will offer a program like DMI, a Desktop Management Interface-based program that will allow you to monitor the CPU's temperature while you're running Windows. You can contact the vendor using the ZDNet Company Finder: http://cgi.zdnet.com/slink?6465
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