Pentium (original)

Pentium (i586)

General information
Launched	March 22, 1993
Discontinued	July 15, 1999[1][better source needed]
Marketed by	Intel
Designed by	Intel
Common manufacturer	Intel
Product code	80501 (P5) 80502 (P45C, P54CQS, P54CS) 80503 (P55C, Tillamook)
Performance
Max. CPU clock rate	60-300 MHz
FSB speeds	50 MHz to 66 MHz
Cache
L1 cache	16–32 KiB
L2 cache	Up to 512 KiB[2]
Architecture and classification
Technology node	800 nm to 250 nm
Microarchitecture	P5
Instruction set	x86-16, IA-32
Extensions	MMX
Physical specifications
Transistors	3.1M 800 nm (P5) 3.2M 600 nm (P54C) 3.3M 350 nm (P54CS) 4.5M 350 nm (P55C)
Cores	1
Sockets	Socket 4 Socket 5 Socket 7
Products, models, variants
Core names	P5 P54C P54CQS P54LM P54CS P55C P55LM Tillamook P24T
Models	Pentium Pentium OverDrive Pentium MMX
History
Predecessor	i486
Successors	P6, Pentium II, Pentium III (SSE successor)
Support status
Unsupported

The Pentium (also referred to as the i586 or P5 Pentium) is a microprocessor introduced by Intel on March 22, 1993. It is the first CPU using the Pentium brand.^[3][4] Considered the fifth generation in the x86 (8086) compatible line of processors,^[5] succeeding the i486, its implementation and microarchitecture was internally called P5.

Like the Intel i486, the Pentium is instruction set compatible with the 32-bit i386. It uses a very similar microarchitecture to the i486, but was extended enough to implement a dual integer pipeline design, as well as a more advanced floating-point unit (FPU) that was noted to be ten times faster than its predecessor.^[6]

The Pentium was succeeded by the Pentium Pro in November 1995. In October 1996, the Pentium MMX^[7] was introduced, complementing the same basic microarchitecture of the original Pentium with the MMX instruction set, larger caches, and some other enhancements. Intel discontinued the P5 Pentium processors (sold as a cheaper product since the release of the Pentium II in 1997) in early 2000 in favor of the Celeron processor, which had also replaced the 80486 brand.^[1]