INTEL PENTIUM ANNOUNCEMENT AND QUICK ANALYSIS On March 22, 1993 Intel announced the Pentium (P5) microprocessor. Pentium runs at 5 volts and features 273-pins in a 21 x 21 4-row pin grid array, 60- and 66-MHz clock speeds, a 64-bit data bus, a 32-bit address bus, 3.1 million transistors, a superscalar implementation and two five-stage execution units, two 8K on-chip caches, a floating- point unit, and branch prediction. The chips are fabricated in a 0.8- micron, 3-layer metal BiCMOS process. Intel will ship "hundreds-of- thousands" of Pentium chips in 1993, and expects to ship its one- millionth Pentium sometime in 1994. With Pentium, Intel is looking to attract users of technical applications that require very fast floating-point processing. Software that runs on a 486 should run without problems on a Pentium. Later this year Intel will provide a Pentium upgrade for 486DX2-based systems and in 1994 an OverDrive processor for Pentium-based systems. Performance: |--------------------------------------------------------------------| | ---------- I N T E L ---------- --- Hewlett-Packard --| | Chip: 486DX 486DX 486DX2 --- Pentium* --- ------- PA 7100 ------| | MHz: 33 50 66 50 60 66 33 50 99 | |SPECint92 18.2 30.1 32.2 48.7 58.3 64.5 24.2 37.1 80.6 | |SPECfp92 8.3 14.0 16.0 43.4 52.2 56.9 46.0 71.8 150.6 | | | | * Numbers for the 60- and 66-MHz Pentium chips were provided by | | Intel and obtained using versions of the SPEC benchmarks | | recompiled for Pentium. Numbers for the 50-MHz Pentium were | | estimated from the 60 and 66 MHz benchmark results. | |--------------------------------------------------------------------| THE QUICK ANALYSIS Intel's press release on Pentium was brief. Additional information, reflected below, included interviews with Intel sources and PC vendors and was available through industry consultant reports and trade press. Announcement Strengths: * Performance Improvements over the 486 * * Excellent Price/Performance on the Desktop * * First Superscalar Implementation for PC systems * * Excellent Integer Performance * HP Selling Points: * Performance Limitations on Pentium - Software Recompiles Required * * HP's Superior Floating-Point Performance * * Pentium Chip and System UNAvailability * * UNavailability of Technical Applications for Pentium * * Hidden Costs of Pentium and PC ownership * * Limitation of Pentium's Superscalar Implementation * * OS Deficiency on Pentium * * Pentium Clone Availability * SUMMARY Intel has made some great improvements over their 486 chip. But Intel has far to go before impacting their RISC competitors due to Pentium's - performance limitations and the need to recompile software - inadequate floating-point performance for technical applications - chip UNavailability throughout 1993 According to a Gartner Group analysis, "trends in performance of the RISC processors indicate that Pentium will lag all architectures by the time it ships in volume". HP is the leader in RISC. Pentium should have little impact on our success in the workstation market. For a more detailed analysis, please request PENTIUM from the Competitive HOTLINE.