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It was looking good. The Pentium Pro was getting long in the tooth. Its successor, the Klamath, appeared to be unable to provide the goods. AMD arose amid much hype with their K6 chip. It was fast, damn fast and it looked like Intel might have some real competition on their hands.
But no, Intel had been ready and their next weapon was unleashed. Out comes the Pentium II which outperforms the K6 hands down. Cunningly Intel have built the Pentium II in a new module which fits into a slot which the K6 can't. And people will move to the new Intel design soon as it offers a cheap way of improved bus speeds which is scalable. Faster processor? No problem the new Intel bus goes faster too. With these kinds of incentives how many people are going to wait around for the six layer motherboards expected to reap the full benefits from the K6's performance.
Once again Intel have triumphed but the biggest winner is us, the consumer. We are getting better chips faster and faster than ever before. MMX was wheeled out, then the Pentium II, improved bus design. Intel have over 80% of the market and they plan to keep it. But with Cyrix and AMD biting at their heels the Intel execs have had to innovate and try even harder to stay ahead.
Lets hope Cyrix can give us something special too, then Intel will really start showering us with goodies. It feels like Christmas already!
by Jeep
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