Which of these statements is true?
A) Due to a marketing mistake, Pentium II processors are actually faster than Pentium III processors.
B) The Intel Xeon line of processors was designed specifically for laptop computers.
C) The PC architecture can only support a single physical CPU.
D) The Itanium and Opteron brands are 64-bit processors.
Answer: D) The Itanium and Opteron brands are 64-bit processors.
Some of the first series of 64-bit processors were introduced by Intel and AMD through the Itanium and Opteron brands, respectively. During their intial release in the early 1990s, 64-bit processors were used for specialized purposes and had limited software support on consumer workstations.
The incorrect answers:
A) Due to a marketing mistake, Pentium II processors are actually faster than Pentium III processors.
There are many opportunities to question marketing, but this isn’t one of them. The Pentium III was the natural progression of the Pentium brand, and the Pentium III was faster than Intel’s Pentium II line of processors.
B) The Intel Xeon line of processors was designed specifically for laptop computers.
The Intel Xeon was designed for multi-processor systems and high-end systems.
C) The PC architecture can only support a single physical CPU.
As we’ve already seen with the Xeon, PC architectures can support multiple physical CPUs, although multiple CPUs are usually seen on high-end server motherboards.
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Find out more about processors in “A History of CPUs.”The history of the modern CPU is a mix of technical prognostication, very smart people, and a drive to expand on our vision of the future. In this module, we’ll follow the path of CPU technology from the origin of the Pentium through the latest in processing technologies from Intel and AMD. |