Pentium
From TPU Reference
The Pentium is an x86 microprocessor manufatured by Intel from 1993 until 1999. The Pentium was the successor to the 486 CPU, and in 1997, the MMX SIMD instruction set was added to the Pentium. The Pentium ran at clock speeds ranging from 60 MHz to 233 MHz. Later on two additional models runnig at 266 MHz (in 1998) and 300 MHz (in 1999) were released for mobile computing. The Pentium used the Socket 4, Socket 5 and Socket 7 form factors. The early models used a rather high voltage (5 volts) and produced a high amount of heat (for that period in time). However, the voltage was stepped down to 1.8 volts by 1997. Intel planned on succeeding the Pentium with the Pentium Pro, but the high price of the Pentium Pro prevented that from happening. In 1997, the Pentium II truly succeeded the Pentium and Pentium Pro microprocessors, although Intel continued to make Pentium CPUs until 1999.
Brand
The name "Pentium" is also a brand-name applied to many CPUs manufactured by Intel, but the Pentium name does not mean the CPUs are of the same architecture. The Pentium 4 uses the NetBurst architecture while other Pentium CPUs used the Intel P6 architecture. The Pentium and Celeron names were retired with the release of the Core 2 architecture, but Intel has resurected the branding scheme once again to market the budget versions of the Core 2 CPUs.
