Sometimes in a review it's a good thing to see where we've been in relation to a product launch. After all, history is important to me as a computer buff. The first Intel microprocessor was the 4004 on November 15, 1971. This chip ran at an clock speed of 108 Kilohertz. Mostly used for calculators, this microprocessor had the ability to address 640 Bytes of memory. I think it's pretty amazing how far we've come with CPUs. Their first microprocessor had 2300 transistors. To put this into perspective, the 3.73 GHz Pentium 4 Extreme Edition has a clock speed of 3.73 GHz, 169 million transistors and can address several exabytes of memory.

The next major "node" in Intel microprocessors was the 8008, announced in 1972. This microprocessor had a operating speed of 200 Kilohertz, nearly doubling that of the 4004. The 8008 was the first 8-bit microprocessor, and had a transistor count of 3500, on a 10 Micron process. Going to 8-bit allowed the processor to address up to 16 Kilobytes of memory, 32X that of the 4-bit 4004. Usage of the 8008 included dumb terminals, calculators, and bottling machines.

The first mass-market personal computer was the Altair 8800 introduced in 1974. Note, that the Altair was NOT the first personal computer as we know it today. I would give that distinction to the HP 9830 of 1972 which had the first alphanumeric keyboard and display on a PC. The Altair 8800, however was marketed to the everyday user, and had the first microprocessor for computers, the 8080. The 8080 had a clock speed of 4.77 MHz, 6500 transistors, with a 8-bit data bus.

Of course, the first computer that was coined a PC was the IBM PC. This computer had a 8088 microprocessor which is similar in many respects to the 8086 but was significant because of the IBM PC's place in history. The 8088 chip ran at a clockspeed of 4.77 MHz, had a 16-bit data bus, and 29,000 transistors. The 8088 can address up to 1 MB of memory.

The next major architecture for Intel processors was the 286. This CPU would be considered the first "real CPU" by many. It had 134,000 transistors, a clockspeed of 8 MHz-20 MHz, a 16-bit data bus, and the ability to address up to 16 MB of memoryand use virtual memory as well. My first modern computer was a 286-12 with 1 MB of RAM. This was the first Intel processor to have the ability to multitask.

The first 32-bit processor from Intel was the 386 introduced in 1985. The stats for this processor included 275,000 transistors, the ability to address 4 GB of memory, and had clockspeeds of 16-33 MHz. The 386 was the first chip to be able to use instruction pipelining which meant that the processor could begin work on the next instruction before the previous instruction was complete.

1989 saw the release of the 486 processor. This was significant in several ways. Stats for the 486: 1.2 million transistors, 32-bit data bus, clockspeeds of 33 MHz-50 MHz. The 486 was the first upgradeable processor. Previously, you had to purchase a new motherboard to upgrade the CPU.

1993 saw the release of the Intel Pentium CPU. This CPU ran the gamut from 60 MHz to 200 MHz. Stats for the Pentium: 3.21 million transistors, 32-bit data bus, the ability to run 2 instructions simultaneously, and SDP (Symmetric Data Processing). SDP meant that you could run two Pentium CPUs side by side and is the percursor to multi-CPU systems today. One of the important additions to the Pentium family was the addition in 1997 of MMX instructions. These Multi Media Extensions provided increased performance in games and multimedia applications. The Pentium Pro was able to process 3 instructions at a time, and had the ability to continue work on one instruction when another was waiting for data from memory, whereas the Pentium would stop work on the other instruction.

In any event, Intel decided to introduce the Pentium II in 1998. This combined the advantages of the Pentium Pro with MMX. This processor used a new packaging. Intel introduced the Pentium III in 1999. The Pentium III added SSE (Streaming Single Instruction Multiple Data Extensions) and the Processor Serial Number to the Pentium II. Later versions of the Pentium III moved the L2 cache from on the a daughtercard to on the CPU die.

2000 saw the introduction of the Pentium IV CPU. This introduced the concept of NetBurst to Intel processors. Netburst consisted of four technologies: Hyper Pipelining, Rapid Execution Engine, Execution Trace Cache, and a 400 MHz system bus (previous Intel CPUs had a maximum of 200 MHz FSB). Pentium 4 is still the brandname Intel uses for their CPUs today. Intel has added SSE3 instructions, up to 1066 MHz FSB, two new sockets (478 and 775) and more SSE instructions since the introduction of the Pentium IV. So let's see what the new CPUs are all about.