Cyrix 6x86

Last updated

6x86/MII
Cyrix 6x86-P166.jpg
A Cyrix 6x86-P166 processor
General information
Launched
  • 6x86 - Oct 1995
  • 6x86L - Jan 1997
  • 6x86MX - Jun 1997
  • MII - May 1998
Discontinued
  • 6x86 - Jun 1999
  • 6x86L - Jun 1999
  • 6x86MX - May 1998
  • MII - Early 2000s
Marketed by
Common manufacturers
Performance
Max. CPU clock rate 80 MHz to 333 MHz
FSB speeds40 MHz to 100 MHz
Cache
L1 cache
  • 16 KB (6x86/L)
  • 64 KB (6x86MX / MII)
Architecture and classification
ApplicationDesktop
Microarchitecture 6x86
Instruction set x86-16, IA-32
Physical specifications
Transistors
  • 4.3M 500 nm
Cores
  • 1
Sockets
Products, models, variants
Core names
  • M1
  • M1L (Low voltage)
  • M1R (3M to 5M)
  • MII (MMX)
Variant
  • 6x86, 6x86L, 6x86MX
History
Predecessor Cyrix 5x86
Successor Cyrix III

The Cyrix 6x86 is a line of sixth-generation, 32-bit x86 microprocessors designed and released by Cyrix in 1995. Cyrix, being a fabless company, had the chips manufactured by IBM and SGS-Thomson. [1] [2] The 6x86 was made as a direct competitor to Intel's Pentium microprocessor line, and was pin compatible. During the 6x86's development, the majority of applications (office software as well as games) performed almost entirely integer operations. The designers foresaw that future applications would most likely maintain this instruction focus. So, to optimize the chip's performance for what they believed to be the most likely application of the CPU, the integer execution resources received most of the transistor budget. This would later prove to be a strategic mistake, as the popularity of the P5 Pentium caused many software developers to hand-optimize code in assembly language, to take advantage of the P5 Pentium's tightly pipelined and lower latency FPU. For example, the highly anticipated first-person shooter Quake used highly optimized assembly code designed almost entirely around the P5 Pentium's FPU. As a result, the P5 Pentium significantly outperformed other CPUs in the game. [3] [4] [5] [6]

Contents

History

The 6x86, previously under the codename "M1" was announced by Cyrix in October 1995. [2] [7] [8] [9] [10] On release only the 100 MHz (P120+) version was available, but a 120 MHz (P150+) version was planned for mid-1995 with a 133 MHz (P166+) model later. The 100 MHz (P120+) 6x86 was available to OEMs for a price of $450 per chip in bulk quantities. [11]

In mid February 1996 Cyrix announced the P166+, P150+, and P133+ to be added to the 6x86 model line. [12] IBM, who produced the chips, also announced they will be selling their own versions of the chips. [13]

The 6x86 P200+ was planned for the end of 1996, [12] and ended up being released in June. [14]

The M2 (6x86MX) was first announced to be in development in mid 1996. It would have MMX and 32-bit optimization. The M2 would also have some of the same features as the Intel Pentium Pro such as register renaming, out-of-order completion, and speculative execution. Additionally it would have 64 KB of cache over the original 6x86 and Pentium Pro's 16 KB. [15] In March 1997 when asked about when the M2 line of processors would begin shipping, Cyrix UK managing director Brendan Sherry stated, "I've read it's going to be May but we've said late Q2 all along and I'm pretty sure we'll make that." [16]

The 6x86L was first released in January 1997 to address the heat issues with the original 6x86 line. [17] The 6x86L had a lower V-core voltage and required a split power plane voltage regulator.

In April 1997 the first laptop to use the 6x86 processor was put on sale. They were sold by TigerDirect and had a 12.1in DSTN display, 16 MB of memory, 10x CD-ROM, 1.3 GB hard disk drive, and cost $1,899 for the base price. [18]

Later by the end of May 1997 on the 27th, Cyrix said they would announce details of the new chip line (6x86MX) the day before Computex in June 1997. [19] For the low end of the series, the PR166 6x86MX was available for $190 with higher end PR200 and PR233 versions available for $240 and $320. [20] [21] IBM being the producer of Cyrix's chips, would also sell their own version. Cyrix hoped to ship tens of thousands within June 1997 with up to 1 million by the end of the year. Cyrix also expected to release a 266 MHz chip by the end of 1997 and a 300 MHz in the first quarter of 1998. [22] They had slightly better floating point performance, which cut adding and multiply times by a third, but it was still slower than the Intel Pentium. The M2 also had full MMX instructions, 64 KB of cache over the original 16 KB, and had a lower core voltage of 2.5V over 3.3V of the original 6x86 line. [23] [24]

National Semiconductor acquired Cyrix in July 1997. [25] [26] [27] National Semiconductor was not interested in high performance processors but rather system on a chip devices, and wanted to shift the focus of Cyrix to the MediaGX line. [28]

In January 1998 National Semiconductors produced a 6x86MX processor on a 0.25 micron process technology. This reduced the chip size from 150 square millimeters to 88. [29] National shifted their production of the MII and MediaGX to 0.25 by August. [30]

In September 1998 IBM's licensing partnership with Cyrix was said to be ended by National Semiconductors. [31] [32] This was due to National wanting to increase production of Cyrix chips in their own facilities, and because having IBM produce Cyrix's chips was causing issues such as profit losses due to IBM frequently pricing their versions of Cyrix's chips lower. [33] National would be paying $50–55 million to IBM to end the partnership, which would end the following April. National would then be moving chip production to their own facility in South Portland, Maine. [34] [35]

The Cyrix MII was released in May 1998. These chips were not exciting like people had hoped, as they were just a rebranding of the 6x86MX. [36] In December these chips cost $80 for a MII-333, $59 for a MII-300, $55 for a MII-266, and $48 for a MII-233. [37]

In May 1999 National Semiconductor decided to leave the PC chip market due to significant losses, and put the Cyrix CPU division up for sale. [38] [25]

VIA bought the Cyrix line in June 1999, and ended the development of high performance processors. The MII-433GP would be the last processor produced by Cyrix. [39] Additionally after VIA's acquisition, the 6x86/L was discontinued, but the 6x86MX/MII line continued to be sold by VIA. [40] [41]

VIA would continue to produce the MII throughout the early 2000s. It was expected to be discontinued when the VIA Cyrix MII was released. [42] However, the MII was still available for sale until mid/late 2003, being shown on VIA's website as a product until October, and it still saw use in devices such as network computers. [43] [44]

Architecture

A simplistic block diagram of the Cyrix 6x86 microarchitecture Cyrix 6x86 arch.svg
A simplistic block diagram of the Cyrix 6x86 microarchitecture

The 6x86 is superscalar and superpipelined and performs register renaming, speculative execution, out-of-order execution, and data dependency removal. [45] However, it continued to use native x86 execution and ordinary microcode only, like Centaur's Winchip, unlike competitors Intel and AMD which introduced the method of dynamic translation to micro-operations with Pentium Pro and K5. The 6x86 is socket-compatible with the Intel P54C Pentium, and was offered in six performance levels: PR 90+, PR 120+, PR 133+, PR 150+, PR 166+ and PR 200+. These performance levels do not map to the clock speed of the chip itself (for example, a PR 133+ ran at 110 MHz, a PR 166+ ran at 133 MHz, etc.). [46]

With regard to internal caches, it has a 16-KB primary cache and a fully associative 256-byte instruction line cache is included alongside the primary cache, which functions as the primary instruction cache. [45]

The 6x86 and 6x86L were not completely compatible with the Intel P5 Pentium instruction set and are not multi-processor capable. For this reason, the chip identified itself as an 80486 and disabled the CPUID instruction by default. CPUID support could be enabled by first enabling extended CCR registers then setting bit 7 in CCR4. The lack of full P5 Pentium compatibility caused problems with some applications because programmers had begun to use P5 Pentium-specific instructions. Some companies released patches for their products to make them function on the 6x86.

Compatibility with the Pentium was improved in the 6x86MX, by adding a Time Stamp Counter to support the P5 Pentium's RDTSC instruction. [47] Support for the Pentium Pro's CMOVcc instructions were also added. [47]

Performance

Similarly to AMD with their K5 and early K6 processors, Cyrix used a PR rating (Performance Rating) to relate their performance to the Intel P5 Pentium (pre-P55C), as the 6x86's higher per-clock performance relative to a P5 Pentium could be quantified against a higher-clocked Pentium part. For example, a 133 MHz 6x86 will match or outperform a P5 Pentium at 166 MHz, and as a result Cyrix could market the 133 MHz chip as being a P5 Pentium 166's equal. However, the PR rating was not an entirely truthful representation of the 6x86's performance. [48]

While the 6x86's integer performance was significantly higher than P5 Pentium's, its floating point performance was more mediocre—between 2 and 4 times the performance of the 486 FPU per clock cycle (depending on the operation and precision). The FPU in the 6x86 was largely the same circuitry that was developed for Cyrix's earlier high performance 8087/80287/80387-compatible coprocessors, which was very fast for its time—the Cyrix FPU was much faster than the 80387, and even the 80486 FPU. However, it was still considerably slower than the new and completely redesigned P5 Pentium and P6 Pentium Pro-Pentium III FPUs. One of the main features of the P5/P6 FPUs is that they supported interleaving of FPU and integer instructions in their design, which Cyrix chips did not integrate. This caused very poor performance with Cyrix CPUs on games and software that took advantage of this. [49] [50]

Therefore, despite being very fast clock by clock, the 6x86 and MII were forced to compete at the low-end of the market as AMD K6 and Intel P6 Pentium II were always ahead on clock speed. The 6x86's and MII's old generation "486 class" floating point unit combined with an integer section that was at best on-par with the newer P6 and K6 chips meant that Cyrix could no longer compete in performance.

Models and variants

6x86

The 6x86 (codename M1) was released by Cyrix in 1996. The first generation of 6x86 had heat problems. This was primarily caused by their higher heat output than other x86 CPUs of the day and, as such, computer builders sometimes did not equip them with adequate cooling. The CPUs topped out at around 25  W heat output (like the AMD K6), whereas the P5 Pentium produced around 15 W of waste heat at its peak. However, both numbers would be a fraction of the heat generated by many high performance processors, some years later. Shortly after the original M1, the M1R was released. The M1R was a switch from SGS-Thomson 3M process to IBM 5M process, making the 6x86 chips 50% smaller.

6x86L

The 6x86L (codename M1L) was later released by Cyrix to address heat issues; the L standing for low-power. Improved manufacturing technologies permitted usage of a lower Vcore. Just like the Pentium MMX, the 6x86L required a split power plane voltage regulator with separate voltages for I/O and CPU core.

6x86MX / MII

Another release of the 6x86, the 6x86MX, added MMX compatibility along with the EMMI instruction set, improved compatibility with the Pentium and Pentium Pro by adding a Time Stamp Counter and CMOVcc instructions respectively, and quadrupled the primary cache size to 64 KB. The 256-byte instruction line cache can be turned into a scratchpad cache to provide support for multimedia operations. [47] Later revisions of this chip were renamed MII, to better compete with the Pentium II processor. 6x86MX / MII was late to market, and couldn't scale well in clock speed with the manufacturing processes used at the time.

Model table

ImagesModelCore nameProcess size
(μm)
Die area
(mm2)
Number of transistors
(millions)
Socket(s)PackageCore VoltageTDP (W)Clock speedBus SpeedL1 CachePrice (USD)Launch
PR90+M10,653943.0 Socket 7 CPGA 3.315.580 MHz40 MHz16 KB$84Nov 1995
PR120+M10,653943.0 Socket 7 CPGA 3.3?100 MHz50 MHz16 KB$450Oct 1995
PR133+M1R0,652253.0 Socket 7 CPGA 3.319.1110 MHz55 MHz16 KB$3262-5-1996
PR150+M1R0,652253.0 Socket 7 CPGA 3.3/3.5220.1120 MHz60 MHz16 KB$4512-5-1996
PR166+M1R0,652253.0 Socket 7 CPGA 3.3/3.5221.8133 MHz66 MHz16 KB$6212-5-1996
PR200+M1R0,44?3.0 Socket 7 CPGA 3.5217.13150 MHz75 MHz16 KB$4996-6-1996
L-PR120+M1L0,351693.0 Socket 7 CPGA 2.8/3.3?100 MHz50 MHz16 KB?Jan-1997
L-PR133+M1L0,351693.0 Socket 7 CPGA 2.8/3.3?110 MHz55 MHz16 KB?Feb-1997
L-PR150+M1L0,351693.0 Socket 7 CPGA 2.8/3.3?120 MHz60 MHz16 KB?Mar-1997
L-PR166+M1L0,351693.0 Socket 7 CPGA 2.8/3.315.98133 MHz66 MHz16 KB?Apr-1997
L-PR200+M1L0,351693.0 Socket 7 CPGA 2.8/3.317.13150 MHz75 MHz16 KB?Apr-1997
PR166-MMXMII0,351976.0 Socket 7 CPGA 2.9/3.3?

?

133 MHz

150 MHz

66 MHz

60 MHz

64 KB$190

?

5-30-97

Q2 1998

PR200-MMXMII0,35 (IBM)

0,30 (NS)

197

156

6.0 Socket 7 CPGA 2.9/3.3?

?

150 MHz

166 MHz

75 MHz

66 MHz

64 KB$240

?

5-30-97

Q2 1998

PR233-MMXMII0,35 (IBM)

0,30 (NS)

197

156

6.0 Socket 7 CPGA 2.9/3.3?

?

188 MHz

200 MHz

75 MHz

66 MHz

64 KB$320

?

5-30-97

Q2 1998

PR266-MMXMII0,35 (IBM)

0,30 (NS)

197

156

6.0 Socket 7 CPGA 2.9/3.3?208 MHz83 MHz64 KB$180

?

3-19-98

Q2 1998

MII-300-MMX (*m)MII0,30

0,25

156

88

6.0 Super 7 CPGA 2.9/3.3

2.2 (*m)

?

?

233 MHz

225 MHz

66 MHz

75 MHz

64 KB$180

?

4-14-98

Q1 1999

MII-333-MMX (*m)MII0,30

0,25

156

88

6.0 Super 7 CPGA 2.9/3.3

2.2 (*m)

?

?

250 MHz100 MHz

83 MHz

64 KB$180

?

6-15-98

Mar-1999

MII-350-MMXMII0,25886.0 Super 7 CPGA 2.9/3.3?270 MHz

250 MHz

90 MHz

83 MHz

64 KB?

?

?

?

MII-366-MMXMII0,25886.0 Super 7 CPGA 2.9/3.3?250 MHz100 MHz64 KB?Mar-1999
MII-400-MMX (*m)MII0,18656.0 Super 7 CPGA 2.2/3.3?285 MHz95 MHz64 KB?Jun-1999
MII-433-MMX (*m)MII0,18656.0 Super 7 CPGA 2.2/3.3?300 MHz100 MHz64 KB?Jun-1999
SGS-Thomson 6x86 Models
ST6x86P90+HSM10,653943.0 Socket 7 CPGA 3.5217.3980 MHz40 MHz16 KB??
ST6x86P120+HSM10,653943.0 Socket 7 CPGA 3.5219.98100 MHz50 MHz16 KB?2-5-1996
ST6x86P133+HSM10,653943.0 Socket 7 CPGA 3.5221.46110 MHz55 MHz16 KB?2-5-1996
ST6x86P150+HSM10,652253.0 Socket 7 CPGA 3.52?120 MHz60 MHz16 KB?2-5-1996
ST6x86P166+HSM10,652253.0 Socket 7 CPGA 3.52?133 MHz66 MHz16 KB?2-5-1996
ST6x86P200+HSM10,44?3.0 Socket 7 CPGA 3.52?150 MHz75 MHz16 KB??
IBM 6x86 Models
2V2100 GBM10,653943.0 Socket 7 CPGA 3.3?80 MHz40 MHz16 KB??
2V2P120GCM10,653943.0 Socket 7 CPGA 3.3?100 MHz50 MHz16 KB??
2V2120 GBM1R0,653943.0 Socket 7 CPGA 3.33?100 MHz50 MHz16 KB??
2V2P150GEM1R0,652253.0 Socket 7 CPGA 3.3/3.52?120 MHz60 MHz16 KB?2-5-1996
2V2P166GEM1R0,652253.0 Socket 7 CPGA 3.3/3.5221.8133 MHz66 MHz16 KB?2-5-1996
2V7P200GEM1R0,44?3.0 Socket 7 CPGA 3.5214150 MHz75 MHz16 KB?2-5-1996
2VAP120 GBM1L0,351693.0 Socket 7 CPGA 2.8?100 MHz50 MHz16 KB??
2VAP150 GBM1L0,351693.0 Socket 7 CPGA 2.8?120 MHz60 MHz16 KB??
2VAP166 GBM1L0,351693.0 Socket 7 CPGA 2.8?133 MHz66 MHz16 KB??
2VAP200 GBM1L0,351693.0 Socket 7 CPGA 2.8?150 MHz75 MHz16 KB??
AVAPR166 GBMII0,351976.0 Socket 7 CPGA 2.9/3.3?133 MHz66 MHz64 KB$2025-30-97
?MII0,351976.0 Socket 7 CPGA 2.9/3.3?150 MHz60 MHz64 KB?5-30-97
BVAPR200 GBMII0,35?6.0 Socket 7 CPGA 2.9/3.3?150 MHz75 MHz64 KB$3695-30-97
AVAPR200GAMII0,30?6.0 Socket 7 CPGA 2.9/3.3?166 MHz66 MHz64 KB?Q2 1998
BVAPR233GCMII0,35?6.0 Socket 7 CPGA 2.9/3.3?166 MHz83 MHz64 KB$4775-30-97
AVAPR233 GBMII0,30?6.0 Socket 7 CPGA 2.9/3.3?188 MHz75 MHz64 KB?Q2 1998
BVAPR233GDMII0,30?6.0 Socket 7 CPGA 2.9/3.3?200 MHz66 MHz64 KB?Q2 1998
BVAPR266GEMII0,35

0,30

?6.0 Socket 7 CPGA 2.9/3.3?208 MHz83 MHz64 KB?3-19-98

Q2 1998

CVAPR300GF (*m)MII0,251196.0 Super 7 CPGA 2.9/3.3?225 MHz75 MHz64 KB$2173-19-98
DVAPR300GF (*m)MII0,251196.0 Super 7 CPGA 2.9/3.3?233 MHz66 MHz64 KB??
CVAPR333GF (*m)MII0,251196.0 Super 7 CPGA 2.9/3.3

2.2 (*m)

?250 MHz83 MHz64 KB$2993-19-98
?MII0,251196.0 Super 7 CPGA 2.9/3.3?263 MHz75 MHz64 KB??
? - Missing information

*m -Available in mobile version for laptops

Information From:

Timeline

Timeline of Cyrix Products
Cyrix 6x86Cyrix 6x86Cyrix 6x86Cyrix 5x86MediaGXCyrix Cx486Cyrix Cx486SLCCyrix Cx486Cyrix Cx486SLCCyrix Cx486SLC82S8783S8783D87Cyrix 6x86

See also

Competitors

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Athlon</span> Brand of microprocessors by AMD

Athlon is the brand name applied to a series of x86-compatible microprocessors designed and manufactured by AMD. The original Athlon was the first seventh-generation x86 processor and the first desktop processor to reach speeds of one gigahertz (GHz). It made its debut as AMD's high-end processor brand on June 23, 1999. Over the years AMD has used the Athlon name with the 64-bit Athlon 64 architecture, the Athlon II, and Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) chips targeting the Socket AM1 desktop SoC architecture, and Socket AM4 Zen (microarchitecture). The modern Zen-based Athlon with a Radeon Graphics processor was introduced in 2019 as AMD's highest-performance entry-level processor.

i486 Successor to the Intel 386

The Intel 486, officially named i486 and also known as 80486, is a microprocessor. It is a higher-performance follow-up to the Intel 386. The i486 was introduced in 1989. It represents the fourth generation of binary compatible CPUs following the 8086 of 1978, the Intel 80286 of 1982, and 1985's i386.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AMD K6</span> Computer microprocessor

The K6 microprocessor was launched by AMD in 1997. The main advantage of this particular microprocessor is that it was designed to fit into existing desktop designs for Pentium-branded CPUs. It was marketed as a product that could perform as well as its Intel Pentium II equivalent but at a significantly lower price. The K6 had a considerable impact on the PC market and presented Intel with serious competition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pentium (original)</span> Intel microprocessor

The Pentium is a x86 microprocessor introduced by Intel on March 22, 1993. It is the first CPU using the Pentium brand. Considered the fifth generation in the 8086 compatible line of processors, its implementation and microarchitecture was internally called P5.

x86 Family of instruction set architectures

x86 is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel based on the 8086 microprocessor and its 8-bit-external-bus variant, the 8088. The 8086 was introduced in 1978 as a fully 16-bit extension of 8-bit Intel's 8080 microprocessor, with memory segmentation as a solution for addressing more memory than can be covered by a plain 16-bit address. The term "x86" came into being because the names of several successors to Intel's 8086 processor end in "86", including the 80186, 80286, 80386 and 80486. Colloquially, their names were "186", "286", "386" and "486".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MMX (instruction set)</span> Instruction set designed by Intel

MMX is a single instruction, multiple data (SIMD) instruction set architecture designed by Intel, introduced on January 8, 1997 with its Pentium P5 (microarchitecture) based line of microprocessors, named "Pentium with MMX Technology". It developed out of a similar unit introduced on the Intel i860, and earlier the Intel i750 video pixel processor. MMX is a processor supplementary capability that is supported on IA-32 processors by Intel and other vendors as of 1997. AMD also added MMX instruction set in its K6 processor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cyrix</span> American microprocessor developer

Cyrix Corporation was a microprocessor developer that was founded in 1988 in Richardson, Texas, as a specialist supplier of floating point units for 286 and 386 microprocessors. The company was founded by Tom Brightman and Jerry Rogers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pentium II</span> Intel microprocessor

The Pentium II brand refers to Intel's sixth-generation microarchitecture ("P6") and x86-compatible microprocessors introduced on May 7, 1997. Containing 7.5 million transistors, the Pentium II featured an improved version of the first P6-generation core of the Pentium Pro, which contained 5.5 million transistors. However, its L2 cache subsystem was a downgrade when compared to the Pentium Pro's.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pentium Pro</span> Sixth-generation x86 microprocessor by Intel

The Pentium Pro is a sixth-generation x86 microprocessor developed and manufactured by Intel and introduced on November 1, 1995. It introduced the P6 microarchitecture and was originally intended to replace the original Pentium in a full range of applications. Later, it was reduced to a more narrow role as a server and high-end desktop processor. The Pentium Pro was also used in supercomputers, most notably ASCI Red, which used two Pentium Pro CPUs on each computing node and was the first computer to reach over one teraFLOPS in 1996, holding the number one spot in the TOP500 list from 1997 to 2000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cyrix 5x86</span> 1995 line of x86-compatible microprocessors

The Cyrix 5x86 is a line of x86 microprocessors designed by Cyrix and released on June 5 of 1995. Cyrix, being a fabless company, had the chips manufactured by IBM. The line came out about 5 months before the more famous Cyrix 6x86. The Cyrix 5x86 was one of the fastest CPUs ever produced for Socket 3 computer systems. With better performance in most applications than an Intel Pentium processor at 75 MHz, the Cyrix Cx5x86 filled a gap by providing a medium-performance processor option for 486 Socket 3 motherboards.

The PR system was a figure of merit developed by AMD, Cyrix, IBM Microelectronics and SGS-Thomson in the mid-1990s as a method of comparing their x86 processors to those of rival Intel. The idea was to consider instructions per cycle (IPC) in addition to the clock speed, so that the processors become comparable with Intel's Pentium that had a higher clock speed with overall lower IPC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Socket 7</span> Physical and electrical specification for an x86-style CPU socket

Socket 7 is a physical and electrical specification for an x86-style CPU socket on a personal computer motherboard. It was released in June 1995. The socket supersedes the earlier Socket 5, and accepts P5 Pentium microprocessors manufactured by Intel, as well as compatibles made by Cyrix/IBM, AMD, IDT and others. Socket 7 was the only socket that supported a wide range of CPUs from different manufacturers and a wide range of speeds.

NexGen, Inc. was a private semiconductor company based in Milpitas, California, that designed x86 microprocessors until it was purchased by AMD in 1996. NexGen was a fabless design house that designed its chips but relied on other companies for production. NexGen's chips were produced by IBM's Microelectronics division in Burlington, Vermont alongside PowerPC and DRAM parts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WinChip</span> Series of CPUs

The WinChip series was a low-power Socket 7-based x86 processor designed by Centaur Technology and marketed by its parent company IDT.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geode (processor)</span> Series of x86-compatible processor

Geode is a series of x86-compatible system-on-a-chip (SoC) microprocessors and I/O companions produced by AMD that was targeted at the embedded computing market.

x87 is a floating-point-related subset of the x86 architecture instruction set. It originated as an extension of the 8086 instruction set in the form of optional floating-point coprocessors that work in tandem with corresponding x86 CPUs. These microchips have names ending in "87". This is also known as the NPX. Like other extensions to the basic instruction set, x87 instructions are not strictly needed to construct working programs, but provide hardware and microcode implementations of common numerical tasks, allowing these tasks to be performed much faster than corresponding machine code routines can. The x87 instruction set includes instructions for basic floating-point operations such as addition, subtraction and comparison, but also for more complex numerical operations, such as the computation of the tangent function and its inverse, for example.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MediaGX</span> Series of x86-compatible processor

The MediaGX CPU is an x86-compatible processor that was designed by Cyrix and manufactured by National Semiconductor following the two companies' merger. It was introduced in 1997. The core is based on the integration of the Cyrix Cx5x86 CPU core with hardware to process video and audio output. Following the buyout of Cyrix by National Semiconductor and the sale of the Cyrix name and trademarks to VIA Technologies, the core was developed by National Semiconductor into the Geode line of processors, which was subsequently sold to Advanced Micro Devices.

A test register, in the Intel 80386 and Intel 80486 processor, was a register used by the processor, usually to do a self-test. Most of these registers were undocumented, and used by specialized software. The test registers were named TR3 to TR7. Regular programs don't usually require these registers to work. With the Pentium, the test registers were replaced by a variety of model-specific registers (MSRs).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cyrix III</span> 2000 line of x86-compatible microprocessors

Cyrix III is an x86-compatible Socket 370 CPU. VIA Technologies launched the processor in February 2000. VIA had purchased both Centaur Technology and Cyrix. Cyrix III was to be based upon a core from one of the two companies.

References

  1. Slater, Michael (May 28, 1996). "Beyond the Pentium; Intel's top challengers have reached the Pentium level, but do they pose a threat to the king of the CPU hill? We examine the chips and vendors to find out". PC Mag . Vol. 15, no. 10. Ziff Davis, Inc. pp. 100–102. ISSN   0888-8507 . Retrieved March 30, 2022.
  2. 1 2 "CYRIX CLAIMS ITS 100MHZ 6X86 CLONE IS THE FASTEST". TechMonitor . October 9, 1995. Retrieved April 25, 2022.
  3. Potoroaca, Adrian (December 30, 2021). "Cyrix: Gone But Not Forgotten; Peak Cyrix Through the Lens of Quake". TechSpot . Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  4. Proven, Liam (June 5, 2016). "The rise & fall of the first real x86 rival to Intel: the Cyrix 6x86". Liam On Linux. Archived from the original on April 22, 2021. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  5. Shimpi, Anand (April 8, 1997). "Cyrix 6x86 MX". AnandTech . Retrieved April 7, 2022.
  6. Sood, Yatharth (July 24, 2020). "How did a single game lead to the shake-up of an entire industry, and sounded the death knell of an entire corporation?". Medium . Retrieved April 7, 2022.
  7. Metz, Cade (May 28, 1996). "First Cyrix 6x86 PCs: How Good? How Fast?". PC Mag . Vol. 15, no. 10. Ziff Davis, Inc. p. 112. ISSN   0888-8507 . Retrieved April 1, 2022.
  8. Vijayan, Jaikumar (October 16, 1995). "Cyrix unveils Pentium-rival chips". Computerworld . Vol. 29, no. 42. IDG Enterprise. ISSN   0010-4841 . Retrieved April 4, 2022.
  9. Minasi, Mark (2004). The Complete PC Upgrade and Maintenance Guide. Wiley (published March 9, 2004). p. 56. ISBN   9780782143102 . Retrieved April 4, 2022.
  10. "Cyrix introduces chip to challenge Pentium". News Record . October 8, 1995. p. 36. Retrieved April 27, 2022.
  11. Metz, Cade (December 5, 1995). "Cyrix's Sixth-Generation Chip; The 6x86 targets mainstream desktops". PC Mag . Vol. 14, no. 21. Ziff Davis, Inc. p. 29. ISSN   0888-8507 . Retrieved April 1, 2022.
  12. 1 2 Fisco, Richard (July 1996). "The Perfect Processor". PC Mag . Vol. 15, no. 13. Ziff Davis, Inc. pp. 135–136. ISSN   0888-8507 . Retrieved April 4, 2022.
  13. Vijayan, Jaikumar (February 19, 1996). "Closing in on performance; Intel competitors nip at Pentium's heels". Computerworld . Vol. 30, no. 8. IDG Enterprise. p. 42. ISSN   0010-4841 . Retrieved April 1, 2022.
  14. "Chronology of the Processor". HWM . SPH Magazines. January 2003. p. 45. ISSN   0219-5607 . Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  15. Metz, Cade (July 1996). "Cyrix's Bold M2 Strategy; Upcoming chip simplifies the upgrade decision". PC Mag . Vol. 15, no. 13. Ziff Davis, Inc. p. 36. ISSN   0888-8507 . Retrieved April 4, 2022.
  16. Veltech, Martin (March 26, 1997). "M2 bang on time - Cyrix; Cyrix's M2 processor is getting ready to join the coming out party for a new generation of processors". ZDnet . Archived from the original on April 5, 2022. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  17. Hare, Chris (July 14, 2008). "586/686 Processors Chart". PC Hardware Links. Retrieved April 27, 2022.
  18. Crothers, Brooke (April 24, 1997). "First Cyrix 6x86 notebook ships". Cnet . Retrieved May 3, 2022.
  19. Veltech, Martin (May 27, 1997). "Cyrix to announce M2 next week; Cyrix is expected to make the formal announcement of its M2 processor next week". ZDnet . Archived from the original on April 5, 2022. Retrieved April 4, 2022.
  20. "Cyrix Launches 6x86MX Processor". EETimes . June 2, 1997. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  21. Miller, Greg (May 30, 1997). "Intel Facing Another Rival to Pentium II". The Los Angeles Times . Retrieved April 25, 2022.
  22. Crothers, Brooke (May 30, 1997). "Cyrix introduces MMX chip; The 6x86MX will be a fast but cheap weapon in Cyrix's assault on the traditional processor pricing structure". Cnet . Archived from the original on April 5, 2022. Retrieved April 4, 2022.
  23. Crothers, Brooke (August 23, 1996). "Intel and Cyrix duel for MMX". Cnet . Retrieved April 25, 2022.
  24. Slater, Michael (1996). Cyrix Doubles 6x86 Performance with M2; MMX Added to Core; Larger Cache, Modified TLB Improve Scaling with Clock (PDF). Vol. 10. Microprocessor Forum (published October 28, 1996). pp. 1–3. Archived (PDF) from the original on December 2, 2021. Retrieved April 4, 2022.
  25. 1 2 Crothers, Brooke (January 2, 2002). "National Semi leaving PC chip market". Cnet . Retrieved April 11, 2022.
  26. "National Semiconductor To Acquire Cyrix". Business Standard . July 30, 1997. Retrieved April 11, 2022.
  27. Thurrott, Paul (July 27, 1997). "National Semiconductor buys Cyrix". ITPro Today. Retrieved April 11, 2022.
  28. "Intel's strongest competitor in history was not amd for a long time". China IT . November 27, 2020. Retrieved April 11, 2022.
  29. "National Produces First Functional Cyrix .25 Micron 6x86MX™ CPU". January 12, 1998. Retrieved April 12, 2022.
  30. Kanellos, Michael (August 26, 1998). "National starts making Cyrix chips; National Semiconductor has also begun producing the Cyrix-brand chips with the advanced 0.25-micron manufacturing process". Cnet . Retrieved May 6, 2022.
  31. "NATIONAL SEMICONDUCTOR HALTING I.B.M. AGREEMENT". The New York Times . September 26, 1998. Retrieved April 25, 2022.
  32. "National Semi Dumps Big Blu". Wired . September 25, 1998. Retrieved April 25, 2022.
  33. DiCarlo, Lisa (September 2, 1998). "IBM to stop making Cyrix chips". ZDNet . Retrieved April 25, 2022.
  34. Kalish, David (September 25, 1998). "National Semi Ends IBM Chip Deal". CBS News . Retrieved April 25, 2022.
  35. Tessler, Joelle (September 25, 1998). "National Semi's Unit Breaks Off Manufacturing Deal With IBM". The Wall Street Journal . Retrieved April 25, 2022.
  36. Shimpi, Anand (May 26, 1998). "Cyrix M-II 300". Anandtech . Retrieved April 4, 2022.
  37. Magee, Mike (December 7, 1998). "Cyrix takes axe to high-end MII prices; Battle to replace Intel after it dropped low end parts". The Register . Retrieved April 8, 2022.
  38. Fisher, Lawrence (May 10, 1999). "National Semiconductor Quits the PC Chip Business". The New York Times . Retrieved April 11, 2022.
  39. Carroll, Mark (June 30, 1999). "Via Technologies to acquire Cyrix". EETimes . Retrieved April 8, 2022.
  40. Mueller, Scott (2003). "Cyrix/IBM 6x86 (M1) and 6x86MX (MII)". Upgrading and Repairing PCs . Que. pp. 175–176. ISBN   9780789729743 . Retrieved April 8, 2022.
  41. Hachman, Mark (November 17, 1999). "Via Technologies' Samuel microprocess or to anchor 2000 chip lineup". EETimes . Retrieved April 26, 2022.
  42. Hachman, Mark (November 17, 1999). "Via Technologies' Samuel microprocessor to anchor 2000 chip lineup". EETimes . Retrieved April 26, 2022.
  43. "Ellison's Net computer gets a pricey accessory". CNet . January 2, 2002. Retrieved April 26, 2022.
  44. "VIA Cyrix® MII™". June 25, 2003. Archived from the original on June 25, 2003. Retrieved April 26, 2022.
  45. 1 2 "Cyrix M1 datasheet" (PDF). Cyrix.
  46. This article is based on material taken from Cyrix+6x86 at the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing prior to 1 November 2008 and incorporated under the "relicensing" terms of the GFDL, version 1.3 or later.
  47. 1 2 3 "IBM 6x86MX datasheet" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on January 30, 2014.
  48. Phillips, Jon (July 2000). "The Pre-Fab Debate Continues". Maximum PC . Vol. 5, no. 7. Future US, Inc. p. 16. ISSN   1522-4279 . Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  49. Mury, John. "CPU Considerations; Cyrix". NiNe's Rendition Quake Workshop. Retrieved April 7, 2022.
  50. Hsieh, Paul (September 7, 1999). "6th Generation CPU Comparisons; The Cyrix 6x86MX" . Retrieved April 7, 2022.

Further reading

Cyrix Datasheets