IBM announces sixth-generation microprocessors that outperform comparable Intel Pentium microprocessors

February 5, 1996

"Within a month of Intel's announcement of its Pentium 150 and Pentium 166, we're announcing 6x86 microprocessors that deliver better performance results than those two microprocessors," said Ken Torino, director of the x86 business unit for IBM Microelectronics. "These microprocessors provide desktop PC buyers with higher performance levels for their increasingly complex multimedia and business applications."

IBM and Cyrix Corp. of Richardson, Texas, conducted lab tests using the widely accepted Winstone 96* benchmark suite, which is based on 13 actual Windows configurations. In comparable system configurations, test results for the IBM 6x86 microprocessors found:

• The new IBM 6x86 P166+, with a clock speed of 133 MHz, delivered higher performance than an Intel Pentium 166 MHz microprocessor, or Winstone 96 results of IBM, 86.7; Intel, 82.7.

• The new IBM 6x86 P150+, with a clock speed of 120 MHz, delivered higher performance than an Intel Pentium 150 MHz microprocessor, or Winstone 96 results of IBM, 81.9; Intel, 77.7.

• The new IBM 6x86 P133+, with a clock speed of 110 MHz, delivered higher performance than an Intel Pentium 133 MHz microprocessor, or Winstone 96 results of IBM, 76.6; Intel, 76.0.

• The new IBM 6x86 P120+, with a clock speed of 100 MHz, delivered higher performance than an Intel Pentium 120 MHz microprocessor, or Winstone 96 results of IBM, 71.7; Intel, 70.9.

The names of IBM's new microprocessors reflect adoption of a new "P-rating" methodology for measuring microprocessor performance announced today by four x86 microprocessor companies. In announcing its support, MDR Labs said the P-rating will allow end users to base purchases on relative PC performance levels, rather than just clock speed for the microprocessor.

"As microprocessor designs have become more varied, PC users need something other than megahertz to use for a simple indicator of performance," said Michael Slater, president of MicroDesign Resources. "The P+ rating gives users a simple, intuitive rating that accurately reflects typical Windows* application performance."

In endorsing this new measurement, IBM's Torino said, "The P-rating system is based upon end-user performance using industry accepted benchmarks, rather than actual megahertz. The names of our new microprocessor are called P-plus to reflect the 'performance plus' value that they deliver."

IBM's four 6x86 microprocessors are manufactured at its Burlington, Vt., plant using IBM's .5 micron, five-level CMOS technology and designs from Cyrix.

Other key features include:

• A superpipelined and superscaled architecture that is optimized for maximum instruction throughput. It includes register renaming, out-of-order execution, data forwarding, branch prediction and speculative execution.

• A large 16K primary cache featuring multiple ports and to reduce the potential for processor bottlenecks.

• The ability to use a 16-bit software base without recompiling for 32-bit applications.

IBM announced that its lines of 6x86 microprocessors will be generally available around the world on March 1 with the following prices for quantities of 1,000: the P166+, $590; the P150+, $400; the P133+, $300; the P120+, $185.

Pricing is current as of February 5, 1996 and is subject to change without notice.