Intel’s Pentium: Powerfully Perplexing
Unprecedented power and unparalleled confusion are the twin promises of a new generation of Intel Pentium-based microcomputers now beginning to trickle into the marketplace.
Based on the performance of Compaq’s new Deskpro 5/60M, a desktop computer optimized as a Windows and CAD (computer-aided design) workstation, the new Pentium machines offer major performance gains at moderate prices.
Armed with 24 megabytes of random access memory, a 510-megabyte hard disk for file storage, an impressive 20-inch Sony Trinitron-based color monitor and a 60 megahertz Intel Pentium microprocessor, the Compaq has a street price of about $9,800. (Prices start at about $4,999 for an 8-megabyte RAM model with a 240-megabyte hard drive. The 20-inch monitor fetches an additional $2,400.)
The Compaq is basically about twice as fast as my speedy 486/66 computer in real-world performance. Considering the complex graphics tasks commonly asked of high-end computers, that kind of increased speed can mean a significant increase in productivity over the course a year.
For instance, the Compaq Pentium machine will shade a three-dimensional engineering drawing produced with DesignCAD 3D into a solid-shaped rendering in 51 seconds, compared to the minute and 38 seconds it takes on the 486/66 computer.
A scanned color photograph, which requires about eight megabytes of disk storage, takes about eight minutes to rotate 90 degrees using Micrografx Picture Publisher on a 486/66 machine while the Compaq Pentium does it in four minutes, 10 seconds. (The same task inexplicably took 17 minutes on another 486/66 model.)
The confusing part is that, for awhile at least, there may be as many different ways to design a Pentium computer as there are manufacturers. And many of the first designs to reach the market may undergo significant revisions as standard designs evolve over the next year or so.
The Pentium chip outruns the normal internal architectures of 486 computers, as well it should, with 3.1 million transistors compared to 1.2 million on the 486 chip. It also processes data internally in 64-bit chunks, in contrast to the 32 bits of the 486, and it can do two things at once using parallel processing pathways. The 486 and earlier chips can execute only one instruction at a time.
Compaq deals with all that power in a proprietary manner that it calls TriFlex/PC Architecture. It lets the Pentium communicate with memory chips at high speed over a wide data path, while communicating with hard disks and the graphics controller at other speeds on other pathways. Video performance is accelerated with a proprietary card that Compaq calls Q-Vision.
Later this year, a new internal design enhancement called PCI (for Peripheral Component Interconnect) will set yet another standard for system design. PCI is implemented with a chip set designed by Intel to assure that computer makers could build machines that take full advantage of the Pentium and microprocessors yet to come.
While the Compaq I tested is a desktop, single-processor machine, Compaq and other manufacturers are offering network servers with two Pentium processors. Expect even larger arrays of Pentium’s in the same box. NCR is building a refrigerator-sized model with up to 16 Pentiums inside and a price tag starting at around $100,000.
Initially the Pentium chip comes in two speeds, 60 and 66 megahertz. They are both the same except that the 60-megahertz chips have been slowed down because they didn’t measure up quite as well in quality-control tests.
With nearly three times the transistors switching current on and off, the Pentium runs a lot hotter than its predecessors, and manufacturers have taken several approaches to keep it cool. Compaq, for instance, placed a massive, finned heat sink on the Pentium, a half-inch deep. It must have easily 10 times the cooling surface area as the heat sink on my 486/66 chip. Others are placing fans directly on the chip, or installing a second cooling fan elsewhere in the chassis or using a combination of extra fans and heat sinks.
All of the early Pentium machines are built by major manufacturers. The little guys can’t get Pentiums, which are in extremely short supply right now. But when the chips do become plentiful enough that the swap meet vendors can offer Pentium computers, you’ll want to be very careful that their designs meet all of the demands that the chip imposes.
