Chipping Away at History

Chipping Away at History
By: Scott Hendison � Published: April 1999

By now, if you've been paying attention, you should be thoroughly confused when it comes to knowing the difference between the different brands of CPU, or chip, that you've seen advertised. Is Intel the best? Is AMD K6 a less expensive solution? What about the other brands, like Cyrix, IBM, and Winchip?
Well, the brand of CPU is not nearly as confusing as the type. We all remember 486 chips. Speeds varied greatly, and there were SX and DX chips. They are all antique now because they were replaced by the Pentium chips.

Pentium chips started at 60mhz, then rose to 200mhz. Then the newer version came out called MMX. They went from 166 to 233mhz, and offered a set of 57 new instructions embedded into the chip that enhanced the multimedia capabilities of the chip. In English . . . they were faster.

Up to and including the 233MMX, Intel and AMD both made similar chips that fit in the same kind of motherboard. The type of motherboard and chip architecture was called "Socket 7". The chip was a flat square that plugged into a socket on the motherboard.

When Intel announced Pentium II, that all changed. AMD continued to make Socket 7 chips, enhancing them to the point of today's fastest AMD chip, the K6II-400. Socket 7 is now called "Super 7", but it's very similar. Intel however, changed the shape of its chip completely. It turned into a triple sized, plastic encased, vertically mounted beast called Slot 1.

Slot 1 chips started with the Intel Pentium II 233 and have gone up to 450mhz at this writing. There are other differences besides just speed within that line but basically, they're the same.

When Intel came out with P-II, they priced themselves out of the market. AMD came roaring up behind them and was starting to capture a big part of the consumer market. Intel had to do something, so they developed the "Celeron" that you still see advertised now. The Celeron was a Pentium II chip with no plastic encasement and no on board "cache". That made it much more affordable.

Cache is a kind of memory that allows frequently used applications or procedures to become almost memorized and therefore open faster. AMD have no cache either, but chips use cache modules on the Super 7 motherboards.

The public did not take well to the first Celeron chips, the 266 and 300. With no cache, they were being outperformed by the equivalent speed of AMD chips. Intel had to act fast, so they put back in SOME cache to improve performance, (128k vs. 512k in a P-II) and that is what's called the "Celeron A" chips you see today.

Celeron A started with the 300A then 333A. These are both Slot 1(regular P-II style). The 366A and the 400A though have thrown a monkey wrench into the mix. For some reason, they are actually coming two different ways. One is Slot 1 and the other looks strangely like the Super 7. It's small, and flat, but of course it won't fit into a Super 7 board. It needs its own style of board called the "Socket 370".

Pentium III chips will be out by the time you read this, and I believe they'll be Slot 1, but I'm sure that won't last long. It's nice to know that at least you can rely on one thing . . . change.