Talk:Pentium Pro

message: Is it worth replacing the current image with one of mine from here?
--CTho 17:44, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Image

message: The P6 architecture was the first to showcase  MTRR, a set of registers that specify how to access certain memory areas, speeding up graphics and PCI access and allowing for other MMU tricks.
This is missing in the previous page. I'm reluctant to add it as it will disrupt the flow of the original text. Kvangend (talk) 16:57, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Topic MTRR missing

message: Here's another small detail: the P6 core scaled from introduction at 200MHz up to almost 1GHz with the last gasp of the Pentium III (as I recall, the 1.133GHz chip Intel did briefly produce was mostly a joke) better than a 5:1 range (not even counting the Tualatin derivatives up to 1400MHz).  The Pentium IV was introduced at 1.4GHz and scaled to 3.8GHZ (with major issues) a ratio of 2.7:1 before the world sproinged in the multicore direction.  The effective scaling range of the Pentium was 90MHz to 266MHz.  The 60MHz 5V core was never taken seriously, and the 300MHz version was an afterthought.   
So let's grant the Pentium Pro some respect.  It was the first king in a monarchy that scaled over a 7:1 range if you rope in Tualatin, wider than any other Intel core technology I can think of.  It was also the technology that consigned Windows 98 to the dust bin, so let's forget that either.  And it established Intel as a serious player in the commodity x86 server space just in time to catch the leading edge of the dotcom boom.  I weary of the Pentium Pro being viewed historically as an "odd duckling".  You just had to look a little more closely than normal to see history in the making.
:"It was also the technology that consigned Windows 98 to the dust bin" 
:do you have any evidence for that claim? By the time XP (the first NT based os to be marketed to normal users) was released netburst was already on it's way in. Many many PII and PIII systems were sold with 98 or ME on them. Plugwash (talk) 09:52, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Long Live the King

message: Contrast this to the Sony/IBM Cell processor, which is far more of an "odd duckling" relative to design tradition than the Pentium Pro ever was.  Yet it seems to earn more implicit respect for being an "abrupt transition" than the Pentium Pro did for ringing in an entirely non-disruptive 7:1 performance scaling.  
I like the Cell myself, I am working in that area now.  However, I regard the Pentium Pro as at least its equal in historical significance to how the architecture landscape played out.  The history on this point is clouded by the number of people running around after the PPro introduction complaining that the sky didn't fall as planned entirely to schedule.  Many people implicityly regarded the PPro as bringing the much unloved vampire back from the grave with seemingly eternal life.  It was a major blow for Wintel against Sun whose Sparc chips were long in recovering their edge in any area other than floating point and aggregate system bandwidth (the later is largely a cost of implementation issue: more pins, more bandwidth, more cost; having not so much do to with good genes, good breeding, blue blood, or right thinking virtue).
:I think you're confusing the Pentium Pro and the P6 architecture. The Pentium Pro didn't scale 7:1, the P6 architecture did. Also, I think you hit the nail on the head. The Cell get's respect because it is such an odd beast that some people think it might be somehow useful. The P6 was more evolutionary and it did command a lot of respect even if the Pentium Pro iteration of it didn't get so much for a variety of reasons Nil Einne 23:03, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: I don't get no respect

message: I'm still somewhat new to the Wikipedia, so I don't know how much bias there is toward reporting the blandly verifiable over capturing the impact of note within the context of its day.  I'll have to give this some thought and return some other time.  
I know that's somewhat screedish in the way I blorped it out.  Anyone else have opinions on what prominence prominence deserves for the main text?  MaxEnt 23:37, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:Verifiability and WP:NPOV are absolute and non negotiable even if it makes the article seem bland for you. Also, talk pages aren't the place for you to post your opinions of a subject either but to discuss how to improve the article. Nil Einne 23:05, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Dithering

message: Why is there no mention of the "Flag Erratum" reported by Robert R. Collins?
:Who knows? You can always add it yourself. —BorgHunter ubx (talk) 01:43, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And please sign your questions it's considered good form.  MaxEnt 02:46, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Math bug in the Pentium Pro and Pentium II 

message: Someone bothered by the unprofessional tone edited enormous socket 8 to large socket 8 which I just changed to stunningly large socket 8.  It was stunning for the day.  There were already large chips, but this was a monster that no-one anticipated.  MaxEnt 02:46, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stunningly Enormous 

message: I think the old image (removed by http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pentium_Pro&diff=119762634&oldid=116442684 on April 2) was better than the current one.  Comments? --CTho 00:38, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent image change 

message: Pentium Pro is the first Intel MCM CPU (or even chip), isn't it? If so, can someone add this fact to the article?
BTW, the caption of an image in the article reads "Uncapped Pentium Pro underside (256/512)". What does 256/512 mean? Warut (talk) 06:15, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I believe the Pentium Pro is Intel's first MCM CPU. As for the caption, 256/512 refers to the amount of L2 cache the CPU had. It should  be really clarified. Rilak (talk) 07:45, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, Rilak. It is stated in the image page that this CPU is 200MHz with 256KB of L2 cache. So could 256/512 be in fact 200/256? Warut (talk) 12:33, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Not exactly. Sorry, I should have clarified. Pentium Pros with 256 and 512 KiB of L2 cache have a similar appearance, with the processor die on the left and the cache die on the right. The caption reads 256/512 because whoever wrote that caption believed the same picture was relevant to models with 256 and 512 KiB of L2 cache. However I don't believe that this is correct as I think that the 512 KiB cache die was produced in a different process, (35 micron vs .5 micron for the original 256 KiB cache die) and that would have lead to a slightly different appearance. Anyways, I've fixed the caption to match the info in the image description. Rilak (talk) 12:54, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Again, thanks for the info and the correction to the caption. :) Warut (talk) 13:10, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Multi-Chip Module 

message: I just did a quick read of this article and noticed that some statements are misleading.
For example, the article states, "The core of Pentium Pro featured several new technologies, including: speculative execution, superpipelining, an advanced L2 cache, register renaming, out of order execution, and a wider 36-bit address bus (usable by PAE)."
This statement I believe are misleading - some of these technologies were featured in CPUs that predate the Pentium Pro. For example, superpipelining was present in CPUs such as the MIPS R4000 and the MIPS R4400, both released significantly before the Pentium Pro. Register renaming and out of order execution was featured on the IBM POWER2 (1993) to a limited degree and the PowerPC CPUs. The importance of the 36 bit is perhaps overstated, as CPUs such as the Alpha 21064 (1992) had a 34 bit address bus and the Alpha 21164 (1995) had a 40 bit address bus. It should also be noted that the Alpha 21164 predated the Pentium Pro by a many months. Perhaps the statement should clarify that these features were 'new' in the x86 family.
"At the time, manufacturing technology did not feasibly allow L2 cache to be integrated into the processor core." - This statement I believe is also misleading. The Alpha 21164 (1995) placed a 96 KiB L2 cache on the die. Perhaps the statement should be revised to, "At the time, manufacturing technology did not feasibly allow a large L2 cache to be integrated into the processor core."
"The two dies — both of which were very large by the standards of the day..." - This statement is also misleading. It gives the impression that the two dies where much larger than those of the same period, but looking at the Alpha 21164 (1995) with a die size of 16.9 x 18.6 mm, compared to the Pentium Pro's die size of 17.5 x 17.5 mm, suggests that the Pentium Pro's die size was average for that period. Also, consider the Sun UltraSPARC (1995), with a die size of 315 mm2 and the MIPS R10000 (early 1996) with a die size of 299 mm2.
As for this statement, "Although only advertised as supporting dual-processor operation, it was capable of running in four- or six-CPU configurations." - It is entirely false. According to Intel's support page regarding this issue it states: "The Pentium® II OverDrive® processor is capable of multiprocessor support up to 2-way multiprocessing, or 2MP." The original page can be found here: http://www.intel.com/support/processors/overdrive/sb/cs-013307.htm
Any comments? Rilak (talk) 10:41, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Go ahead fixing it! Cheers, Warut (talk) 12:59, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

text: Supported or not, it's been done.  I've personally built and used a six-way PPro overdrive setup -- ALR 6x6 with 333 MHz processors.  A very brief web search turns up http://www.puresimplicity.net/~hemi/Pics/Comps/ALR/dmesg.txt . 70.132.6.3 (talk) 01:16, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  It does not matter whether you have done it or not. I am sure you can do all sorts of things with computer hardware that is not intended, supported or designed. Such feats are not to be mentioned in an encyclopedia. As for your supposed "source", it isn't from Intel is it? There is only one acceptable source for information regarding Intel microprocessors and that is Intel literature. Rilak (talk) 06:54, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I did some basic research into the ALR 6x6 motherboard. The information I found suggests that this motherboard used custom glue logic to support six Pentium Pro processors. Because it uses custom glue logic in order to support six processors, it means that the official Intel documents are correct - the Pentium Pro only supports 2-way multiprocessing, as 6-way multiprocessing is not provided (supported) by the processor, but by the custom logic. Of course, if anyone has a reliable source (not a blog, forum or someone's website) such as technical documents (not marketing) from ALR or a reputable independent third party, I will reassess the accuracy of my statement(s). Rilak (talk) 06:21, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misleading? 

message: Don't some or all of the Pentium Pros have MMX support? 74.139.89.19 (talk) 01:25, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: None that I am aware of, no.  — Aluvus t/c 01:31, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

text: The i686 architecture supported MMX with the Pentium II, but no Pentium Pro parts ever did. —Trollaxor (talk) 20:53, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: MMX

message: Note. For interested authors, debate and a vote is ongoing on Talk:MOSNUM regarding a proposal that would deprecate the use of computer terms like “kibibyte” (symbol “KiB”), “mebibyte” (symbol “MiB”), and kibibit (symbol “Kib”). It would no longer be permissible to use terminology like a “a SODIMM card with a capacity of two gibibytes (2 GiB) first became available…” and instead, the terminology currently used by manufacturers of computer equipment and general-circulation computer magazines (“two gigabytes, or 2 GB”) would be used. Voting on the proposal is ongoing here.  Greg L (my talk) 21:15, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds like a boatload of fun.  I'm not changing what work I've already done.  Someone else can change it.  Also, pushing something to a vote and working off of that decision is not the same as discussing it and coming to the best conclusion.--MARQUIS111 (talk) 21:04, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't believe that there is a current policy that allows use of binary prefixes. The proposal makes the existing policy even more crystal clear. I've changed all instances of binary prefixes to reflect common usage. Rilak (talk) 04:24, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There IS a policy to use the correct binary prefixes, there are just some users like you which don't like them so they are trying to use a vote to disallow them. --Denniss (talk) 11:55, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Nobody uses that kibi/mebi/gibibyte rubbish anywhere, except Wikipedia sperglords.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.222.24.206 (talk) 13:15, 11 August 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: MiB and KiB v.s. MB and KB

message: Windows 95 does not run any faster than the Top of the line Pentium. Windows 95 may not not boot in processors over 30 Megahertz.
Plus, To take advantage of a more powerful processor, people would rather run Windows NT or UNIX on a Workstation that has 32 MB of RAM which was techincally a powerful one at the time.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.110.179.64 (talk) 02:43, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I suggest you read the article again for your comments here suggests that you didn't read it properly before you posted. Rilak (talk) 07:32, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Windows95?

message: The second paragraph in the intro should either be removed or moved to the Pentium II article as it as more to do with the Pentium II than that of the Pentium Pro  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.56.97.249 (talk) 21:39, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. Rilak (talk) 12:40, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Pentium II paragraph misplaced

message: Should details go in here or at Intel P6 (microarchitecture)? Rilak (talk) 12:26, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Microarchitecture 

message: That would make the 8086 "zero generation".  It's easy to think of the 686 as "6th generation", going back 586,486,386,286,186,086, but that is not the usual english sense of the expression: normally we call the base (the 8086), the "first" generation.218.214.18.240 (talk) 01:38, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: x86 has the 8086 as the first generation, and combines the 80186 and 80286 into the second generation.  It's all a bit arbitrary.  — Aluvus t/c 03:34, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  sixth-generation x86 microprocessor 

message: Currently, the  #Available_models section is anemic and fails to meet general Wikipedia standards. I therefore humbly submit my table of Pentium Pro parts and specifications for review before inclusion in this article. —Trollaxor (talk) 21:23, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  #Available_models 

message: Should there be a mention on this page of the TLB erratum reported at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/319091 which was supposedly responsible for Windows Server 2003 not supporting multiprocessor Pentium Pro systems? I confirmed this myself with casual testing on an IBM workstation. Karsini (talk) 01:32, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  SMP issues with Windows Server 2003. 

message: Unless there is strong disagreement, I will add the following table to the Available models section.
Clock  	Bus   	L2 Cache	Max TDP
150 MHz	60 MHz	256 KB  	31.7 W
166 MHz	60 MHz	512 KB  	35 W
180 MHz	60 MHz	256 KB  	31.7 W
200 MHz	66 MHz	256 KB  	35 W
200 MHz	66 MHz	512 KB  	37.9
200 MHz	66 MHz	1024 KB 	44 W
Trollaxor (talk) 22:05, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Available models 

message: The Pentium Pro became infamous a few years back for its relatively high gold content - supposedly a theoretical $50 per chip at the height of the gold craze. The problem is that I can't find a good, non-partisan source for this, yet I'm sure I read something on the topic in the NYT a long time ago. Tom's Hardware has an article here about refining gold from motherboards, but the Pentium Pro was usually singled out on forums for its large size. -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 19:11, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gold