wbmw,
Pentium Pro launched in November, 1995, and was a huge step towards putting x86 into the enterprise, where RISC was a formidable opponent.
True, but prior to P6, x86 were really only the low end of the servers, and it was P6 that allowed x86 to take over the mainstream of the server market.
Pentium II launched in May, 1997, and by this time AMD already had the K6 processor. They went pretty much tit for tat for the next couple years until AMD launched the K7.
On balance, I think Pii and Piii were ahead in absolute performance vs. K6. And it went head to head vs. K7 (Coppermive vs. Athlon classic) for some time in the very important Integer centered apps while clock speeds were roughly on par (700 to 800 MHz). Tbird gained clear leadership when Piii could not keep up with clock speeds, and when Tbird features started piling on - on die L2 (to reach parity in that department), higher bandwidth, PC-133, DDR-2100. But at that point, Piii was eol.
True, but I'm not expecting any miracles from AMD until their K10 micro-architecture, whenever that is.
I am not expecting miracles either, but sometimes, something that seems within grasp is not really there yet. Case in point Mentocito. When was the first time Intel flashed a waver with Montecito die on it? It seems like more than a year ago. It may be another year before full featured Montecito (2 GHz, 24MB L3) arrives.
We were told that OEMs have been working with Montecito for some time, and now it turns out that the feature set and the power dissipation numbers are still in state of flux.
I am not saying that the same will happen with Merom. But it is just the nature of the beast that there are delays and often unfulfilled promises.
The same applies to K10, BTW.
Joe
AI
Market Data 
Markets 
