Intel introduced the P6 design in November 1995 in the guise of the Pentium Pro. This chip marked a departure for Intel as it incorporated
the level 2 cache, which was always previously located on the motherboard. The Pentium Pro's on chip cache was set at many different levels
which were 256Kb, 512Kb, 1Mb & 2Mb. The cache on the Pentium Pro ran at full clock speed, and was incorporated directly onto the processor
package which made it exterely expensive to manufacture. The Pentium Pro was the only processor to use the Socket 8 connector.
The Pentium Pro was far better at processing 32 bit code as used in Windows NT than the 16 bit code of Windows 95/98. This made the Pentium
Pro only really suitable for the powerful server market, and it never made any inroads into the home/desktop market. The Pentium Pro could
also be used in multi-processor systems of up to 4 processors which made it especially suitable for NT servers.
There are some second hand Pentium Pro processors on sale, but these are very expensive. The Pentium Pro is only a processor which can be
recommended for use in the server market. The Processor Emporium would advise the home buyer to look towards the Pentium Pro's successor
the Pentium II or the AMD K6 as these are FAR cheaper and now offer more power.
Intel Pentium Pro, Technical Data
| Processor |
Clock Speed |
Bus Speed |
Clock Muiltiplier |
| P Pro 166 |
166 MHz |
66 MHz |
2.5x |
| P Pro 180 |
180 MHz |
60 MHz |
3x |
| P Pro 200 |
200 MHz |
66 MHz |
3x |
Other Intel Processors at:
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