Pentium
Pentium is a discontinued series of x86 architecture-compatible microprocessors produced by Intel. The original Pentium was first released on March 22, 1993. The name "Pentium" is originally derived from the Greek word pente (πεντε), meaning "five", a reference to the prior numeric naming convention of Intel's 80x86 processors (8086–80486), with the Latin ending -ium since the processor would otherwise have been named 80586 using that convention.
First Pentium logo (1993) | |
| General information | |
|---|---|
| Launched | March 22, 1993 |
| Discontinued | 2023 |
| Marketed by | Intel |
| Designed by | Intel |
| Common manufacturer(s) | |
| Performance | |
| Max. CPU clock rate | 60 MHz to 4.4 GHz |
| FSB speeds | 50 MHz to 800 MT/s |
| DMI speeds | 2 GT/s to 16 GT/s |
| Architecture and classification | |
| Technology node | 800 nm to Intel 7 |
| Microarchitecture | |
| Instruction set | IA-32, x86-64 |
| Instructions | x86 |
| Physical specifications | |
| Cores |
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| Socket(s) | |
| Products, models, variants | |
| Brand name(s) |
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| Variant(s) | |
| History | |
| Predecessor(s) | i486 |
| Successor(s) | Core, Intel Processor |
Pentium was Intel's flagship processor line for over a decade until the introduction of the Intel Core line in 2006. Pentium-branded processors released from 2009 to 2023 were considered entry-level products that Intel rated as "two stars", meaning that they were above the low-end Atom and Celeron series, but below the faster Intel Core lineup and workstation/server Xeon series. These later Pentium processors have little more than their name in common with earlier Pentiums.
The later Pentiums were based on both the architecture used in Atom and that of Core processors. In the case of Atom architectures, Pentiums were the highest performance implementations of the architecture. Pentium processors with Core architectures prior to 2017 were distinguished from the faster, higher-end i-series processors by lower clock rates and disabling some features, such as hyper-threading, virtualization and sometimes L3 cache.
In 2017, Intel split Pentium into two line-ups:
- Pentium Silver, aiming for low-power devices and shares architecture with Atom and Celeron.
- Pentium Gold, aiming for entry-level desktop and using existing architecture, such as Kaby Lake or Coffee Lake.
In September 2022, Intel announced that the Pentium and Celeron brands will be replaced with the new "Intel Processor" branding for low-end processors in desktops and laptops from 2023 onwards.