In May 1995, Intel released the Pentium 2, which claimed to have a tenfold increase in performance, and the price was extremely generous.

Therefore, after the release of the 500MHz high-frequency version and 330 MHz low-frequency version of the Besturn 2 chip, the entire PC camp is equivalent to a booster.

Many well-known computer review writers and media, under the purchase of PC camp manufacturers such as Intel and IBM, have been optimistic about the evaluation articles of the Besturn 2nd generation chip, which have appeared in the network media overwhelmingly.

Among them, an article by the computer evaluation Internet celebrity "Installer Johnson", which has tens of thousands of fans on the Yahoo blog, has ignited the enthusiasm of countless PC consumers——

"Intel's Pentium 2nd generation chip launched on May 1 should be the strongest personal computer chip in history, Pentium 2nd generation is only a 330MHz low-frequency version, priced at only $99, but due to the improvement of architecture and process, the actual performance is close to the 8-core Luban 3rd generation......

The architecture of Luban's 3rd generation 200MHz8 core is essentially an 'official overclocking' and backward process, stacking the number of cores to achieve XRM chips with fewer cores than performance. The single-core Luban 3rd generation is streamlined, and the 8-core Luban 3rd generation is impossible to give full play to all the chip performance, so by stacking up the number of cores, improving the performance by making it bigger and bigger, making it nominally streamlined, in fact, it wastes the performance of a large number of chips, and when working, most of the performance is idle, that is, it becomes an inefficiency similar to a complex instruction set.

The inefficiency of complex instruction sets is that the performance of a single core with the same number of transistors is far inferior to that of reduced instruction set chips. However, it is definitely much more efficient to integrate the same number of transistors into one core, no matter how inefficient, and to spread the same number of transistors across eight cores. The author has always believed that Moore's Law is correct, and more transistors should be integrated on a single core, and increasing the main frequency of a single core is the king.

In the past few years, Intel has taken the wrong route, trying to add cores to counter the computers of the Pangu camp when the complex instruction set architecture itself is far from the reduced instruction set. However, because he was led by the nose by the opponent, he was naturally more and more suppressed by the opponent with the multi-core he was not good at.

In particular, the serious bug of the Pentium 1 generation last year further hit Intel's market share. After that, the Pangu computer with XRM architecture had a market share of more than 70%.

However, Intel was not defeated, but began to wake up to the fact that process is Intel's strength. In the past, Intel was able to beat its competitors more because of its process leadership. If the leading generation process is not enough, then expand the process leadership to two generations. In this way, relying on the leading process, it is natural to be able to make chips with more transistors. After all, the ultimate performance improvement of chips still depends on the process, and the architecture may be important, but it is still not as important as the process.

Although the 0.35 micron process is 0.5 microns ahead, it is only one generation ahead, and it does not erase the disadvantages of Intel's x86 architecture. And in order to completely win in the architecture, therefore, Intel chose to step up the time on the basis of the process that was already ahead of the opponent's generation, and pushed the 0.25 micron process that originally stayed in the laboratory to mass production in advance, and based on the 0.25 micron process, the Pentium 2 generation chip 500 MHZ main frequency version, 500MHZ main frequency to 200MHZ main frequency, no need to evaluate, you also know the victory and defeat.

IN ADDITION, THE INEXPENSIVE 330MHZ MAINSTREAM VERSION OF THE PENTIUM, THE PROCESS IS 0.35 MICRONS, BECAUSE THE 0.35 MICRON PROCESS IS MORE MATURE AND LESS COSTLY. Because the process is cheaper, the 330MHZ version of the Besturn 2 is only $99. The $99 low-frequency Pentium 2, in the actual test, is slightly inferior to the Luban 3rd generation, after all, the Luban 3rd generation has 8 cores, while the Pentium 2nd generation only has dual cores. However, don't forget, the 330MHZ Pentium 2 can also continue to be overclocked, in fact, there is no risk of overclocking the Pentium 2 to 400MHz, and after overclocking, it can reach more than 150% of the performance of the Luban 3 generation. Lower price, after overclocking, it is far beyond the Luban 3rd generation, it can be said that this chip is Intel's conscience, low price and high performance, trying to use such a sincere explosion to change the market pattern.

As for the $450 high-frequency version, it proves that high frequency is king, and after the core frequency is increased to 500MHz, the performance is more than 2 times higher than the 200MHz Luban 3rd generation. If you continue to overclock, you can easily exchange 3~4 times the performance of Pangu 9th generation computers!

It can be said that with the advent of the Pentium 2 generation, it has completely changed the pattern of PC computer performance losing to Pangu computer.

At present, because the market share of the PC camp continues to decline, it continues to launch price reduction promotions, as well as a large number of software and accessories. Compared with last year10month,The current PC,The same performance,Only half the price,Price,Even more cost-effective than Pangu9Generation,Of course,In entertainment software such as games,Due to the lack of attention to PC in the past,Plus,Pangu camp started with a game platform from the beginning,So,Innate advantage。 However, with the number of PC users, it is impossible for game manufacturers to completely ignore the PC market, and most of the popular games will be released on the Pangu platform in a few months to a year, and then they will be ported to the PC platform one after another. At present, IBM and Intel, the core companies of the PC camp, have attached importance to the influence of game manufacturers, and in the future, there will definitely be big moves to change the shortcomings of the PC platform in terms of game content......

Basically, the performance of PCs is no worse than that of Pangu, and the software ecosystem has its own strengths with Pangu. In particular, only buying a chip can improve the performance to the flagship level, which is more cost-effective, and after upgrading, the computer can be outdated for at least two or three years, so why not?"

With the release of a large number of such obviously tendentious technical evaluations, all of a sudden, Intel's orders for the Pentium 2nd generation chip began to soar, but many consumers found that it was really difficult to buy the Pentium 2.

Although the Pentium 2 was announced to be listed, the retail channels in the market are basically not available.

Of course, there are still stocks available on the black market, such as the low-frequency Pentium 2 with a price tag of $99, which can be easily bought if you are willing to bid $149. It's just that Intel's official standard price is difficult to get the goods.

As for the $450 high-frequency version, it is even more out of stock. Because Intel only has a 0.25 micron production line for mass production, and the yield rate is not high, and the monthly production capacity does not exceed 50,000 pieces. With such production capacity, it is impossible to open up the supply, so this chip has been on the market for a long time, and it has become a legendary chip. Even the black market is a rarity.

Even, many review writers did not get the physical chip, but in the "cloud evaluation", they received money from Intel, and played according to the official information given by Intel, anyway, as long as the Pentium 2 was blown into the sky, they could get the money.

Although the production capacity of Pentium 2 is limited, and most of the compatible machine manufacturers and distributors in the PC camp cannot get the goods for the time being, IBM has begun to mass-produce computer hosts based on Pentium 2 chips. Because, from the very beginning, this chip was developed collaboratively with the help of IBM. IBM has lent almost half of the company's engineers related to chip architecture to Intel, so that Intel can complete the development and mass production of the Pentium 2 chip so quickly.

And because IBM has been involved from beginning to end, IBM has also been given priority in the supply of chips. At the same time, after Intel's chip factory began mass production of Pentium 2 chips, IBM also completed the development and production of a new generation of PCs almost simultaneously.

With the release of Intel's new generation of chips, IBM naturally responded quickly -

On May 8, IBM launched two PCs based on the Pentium 2 chip worldwide. The flagship version, priced at only $2999, is a Pentium 2 high-end version, 128MB memory, 64MB video memory, 1GB solid-state system hard disk, and 30GB mechanical hard disk. The entry-level version is priced at only $799, with 64MB RAM, 32MB VRAM, 512MB solid-state, and 5GB HDD. The configuration of the flagship version is far ahead of the Pangu 9th generation, and it is a performance monster-level personal computer. The entry version is a cost-effective machine, and all configurations are benchmarked against the Pangu 9th generation......"

Many users can't believe that IBM has changed its course and launched such a low-priced cost-effective configuration. Especially the entry-level version, which is already cheaper than the Pangu 9 generation.