CPU Shack - IBM 6x86 P133+ P150+ P166+ Cyrix

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

February 5, 1996

Fishkill, New York -- IBM today announced sixth-generation microprocessors that outperform comparable Intel Pentium* microprocessors in independent laboratory tests.

"Within a month of Intel's announcement of its Pentium 150 and Pentium 166, we're announcing IBM and Cyrix Corp. 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;

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;

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;

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.

MicroDesign Resources Labs (MDR Labs) of Sebastopol, Cal., matched the results of the P166+, the P150+ and P120+ as outlined in its data on the P133+ in its next report.

The names of IBM's new microprocessors reflect adoption 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.

Pricing and availability

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.

Return to main reference page
cts/x86/6x86/6x86_pb.html"> 6x86 microprocessors that deliver better of Richardson, Texas, conducted lab tests using the Intel, 82.7.
Intel, 77.7.
Intel, 76.0.
report, "Performance Analysis of the 6x86" and plans to issue its benchmarking of a new "P-rating" methodology for measuring microprocessor performance type="text/javascript">