Imitation To Innovation: AMD's Best CPUs
Table of contents
- 1. AMD Clones Intel
- 2. Am286: Manufactured Under License, But Faster
- 3. Am386: A 40-MHz 386
- 4. Am486: The Last Clone
- 5. The K5: AMD's Very Own Processor
- 6. The K6: AMD Extends Its Range
The year is 1981, and Intel (see our history of Intel processors from a few months back) has just been chosen by IBM to supply the processor for the first personal computer. IBM wanted at least two CPU suppliers for its PC, and forced Intel to license its technology. And so it was that AMD became one of the first companies to sell an 8086 close. AMD’s first processor went on sale in 1982. Because it was a licensed processor, the AMD 8086 (and 8088) was identical to Intel’s model.
| Code name | ? |
| Date released | 1982 |
| Architecture | 16-bits |
| Data bus | 16-bits |
| Address bus | 20-bits |
| Maximum memory | 1 MB |
| L1 cache | no |
| L2 cache | no |
| Clock frequency | 5-10 MHz |
| FSB | same as clock frequency |
| FPU | 8087 |
| SIMD | no |
| Fabrication process | 3,000 nm |
| Number of transistors | 29,000 |
| Power consumption | ? |
| Voltage | 5 V |
| Die surface area | 16 mm² |
| Connector | 40 pins |
Note the “© Intel” on the processor, made by AMD.
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Clone?
Like the intel article this feels a little rushed and could do with more detail or comments on supporting hardware at the time. Maybe even tracking the release/life cycle of cpus to the market share. Anything to make it actually feel like an article instead of a bunch of pictures with comments tacked on. For example this comment is probably equal to the amount of text for the first two processor types
this article is battey
I would like to have seen at least complete tables for each architecture. Its a bit cheap to have only 2-4x processor codes per architecture. My current AMD processors are not listed (AMD Opteron 248 : code "Troy"). Come on guys it is interesting to see the progression through the processor codes.
As for the text it is like the Abridged version of a summarised summary of the potted history of AMD processors (with the technical bits edited out).
Bob
I remember owning my first 1ghz athlon.Was fast
I remember owning a K6-III+ .. you could use them in desktop motherboards and they were very good (especially in servers). They also overclocked very well; it was not uncommon for 450MHz variants to top 600MHz..all that on a Socket 7 board. I miss the old days.