Pentium

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Pentium

First Pentium logo (1993)
General information
Launched	March 22, 1993; 31 years ago (1993-03-22)
Discontinued	2023; 1 year ago (2023)[1]
Marketed by	Intel
Designed by	Intel
Common manufacturer	Intel
Performance
Max. CPU clock rate	60 MHz to 4.4 GHz
FSB speeds	50 MHz to 800 MT/s
DMI speeds	2 GT/s to 16 GT/s
Architecture and classification
Technology node	800 nm to Intel 7
Microarchitecture	P5 P6 NetBurst Core Nehalem Westmere Sandy Bridge Ivy Bridge Haswell Broadwell Skylake Willow Cove Golden Cove
Instruction set	IA-32, x86-64
Instructions	x86
Physical specifications
Cores	1-5
Sockets	Desktop Socket 4 Socket 5 Socket 7 Socket 8 Slot 1 Socket 370 Socket 423 Socket 478 LGA 775 LGA 1155 LGA 1150 LGA 1151 LGA 1200 LGA 1700 Mobile Socket 495 Socket 479 Socket M Socket P Socket G1 Socket G2
Products, models, variants
Brand names	Pentium/Pentium MMX Pentium Pro Pentium II/Pentium II MMX Pentium III Pentium 4/Pentium 4 Extreme Edition Pentium D/Pentium Extreme Edition Pentium M Pentium Silver Pentium Gold
Variant	Atom, Celeron
History
Predecessor	i486
Successors	Core, Intel Processor

Pentium logos

1993–2003

2003–2006

2006–2009

2009–2013

2013-2015

2015–2020

2020–2023

Pentium is a discontinued series of x86 architecture-compatible microprocessors produced by Intel. The original Pentium was first released on March 22, 1993. The name "Pentium" is originally derived from the Greek word pente (πεντε), meaning "five", a reference to the prior numeric naming convention of Intel's 80x86 processors (8086–80486), with the Latin ending -ium since the processor would otherwise have been named 80586 using that convention.

Pentium was Intel's flagship processor line for over a decade until the introduction of the Intel Core line in 2006. Pentium-branded processors released from 2009 to 2023 were considered entry-level products that Intel rated as "two stars",^[2][3] meaning that they were above the low-end Atom and Celeron series, but below the faster Intel Core lineup and workstation/server Xeon series. These later Pentium processors have little more than their name in common with earlier Pentiums.

The later Pentiums were based on both the architecture used in Atom and that of Core processors. In the case of Atom architectures, Pentiums were the highest performance implementations of the architecture. Pentium processors with Core architectures prior to 2017 were distinguished from the faster, higher-end i-series processors by lower clock rates and disabling some features, such as hyper-threading, virtualization and sometimes L3 cache.

In 2017, the Pentium brand was split up into two separate lines using the Pentium name:

• Pentium Silver, aiming for low-power devices using the Atom & Celeron architectures.
• Pentium Gold, aiming for entry-level desktop and using existing architectures such as Kaby Lake or Coffee Lake.

In September 2022, Intel announced that the Pentium and Celeron brands were to be replaced with the new "Intel Processor" branding for low-end processors in laptops from 2023 onwards.^[1] This applied to desktops using Pentium processors as well, and was discontinued around the same time laptops stopped using Pentium processors in favor of "Intel Processor" processors in 2023.