Analysis and Comparison of Different Microprocessors

used in Computer Architecture

Manoj Gyanani
Computer Science Department
San Jose State University
San Jose, CA 95192
408-455-4128
manoj.gyanani@sjsu.edu

ABSTRACT low level activities. It mainly performs the task of uploading,

In the current world, it’s almost impossible to imagine that someone downloading and recalling data into and from the memory card.
can live without computers. Computers have become an electronic Apart from that it also does complex mathematical calculations
device of almost every day use for individuals of every age. we within a single command.
cannot imagine of advancements without computers. Hence it
becomes very important to understand the principal running entity of 2.2 Reduced Instruction Set Microprocessor
the computer architecture. The microprocessor is the brain of a This processor is also called as RISC. These kinds of chips are made
computer. it is a multipurpose, programmable device that according to the function in which the microprocessor can carry out
accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions small things within a particular command. In this way it completes
stored in its memory, and provides results as output. Hence, it is more commands at a faster rate.
significant to analyze various processors and then compare them. So
that we can know about pros and cons of different processors. We 2.3 Superscalar Processors
have to select the best microprocessor and for that , it is really This is a processor that copies the hardware on the microprocessor
important to analyze & make a comparison among them. Parameters for performing numerous tasks at a time. They can be used for
like speed, number of cores, power, graphics, memore types , cache arithmetic and as multipliers. They have several operational units and
etc can be used to make comparison. Hence this paper aims at thus carry out more than a one command by constantly transmitting
thorough analysis and comparison of different microprocessors. various instructions to the superfluous operational units inside the
processor.

1. INTRODUCTION 2.4 The Application Specific Integrated Circuit

Microprocessor is an important part of the computer. Without it the This processor is also known as ASIC. They are used for specific
computer is totally useless. It is a chip that has all the functions of the purposes that comprises of automotive emissions control or personal
CPU of a computer. The micro processor has the following functions digital assistants computer. This kind of processor is made with
of data storage, interaction with other peripheral devices and other proper specification but apart from that it can also be made using the
time related functions. The Micro processor is the CPU (central off the shelf gears.
processing unit) itself which has undergone marvelous changes since
its invention. Its role is to send and receive data and make the
computer function well. Commands need to be given for this chip to 2.5 Digital Signal Multiprocessors
function that is already fed inside the device in the form of current Also called as DSP’s, these are used for encoding and decoding
variations. On the whole we can say that a microprocessor is a CPU videos or to convert the digital and video to analog and analog to
integrated into a small silicon chip that comprise of thousands of digital. They need a microprocessor that is excellent in mathematical
small components such as- diodes, transistors and resistors that work calculations. The chips of this processor are employed in SONAR,
together.Top companies that are producing microprocessors are Intel, RADAR, home theaters audio gears, Mobile phones and TV set top
AMD, Via Technologies, Motorola, DEC, Transmeta, MIPS & Texas boxes.
Instruments. Among all this names, Intel has captured bigger market
followed by AMD. 3. MICROPROCESSOR: IT’S
ARRANGEMENT AND SPEED
3.1 Arrangement
2. TYPES OF MICROPROCESSOR The processor is placed on a motherboard with a bus speed that can
2.1 Complex Instruction Set Microprocessors match the processor. This allows the processor to go as fast as the
wires making up the bus can handle. This means less resistance in the
They are also called as CISM in short and they categorize a micro
wire the faster system can run. The bus is measured in megahertz and
processor in which orders can be executed together along with other
is connected to the memory for the processor to store in memory. The
faster the operation can occur the better the system operates.
8086 10 MHz 1 MB None 10 MHz
3.2 Speed 8 MHz 8 MHz
The CPU uses a clock speed that tells how many operations can
happen in a single second. A CPU’s clock is calculated by 4.77 Mhz
multiplying the processor megahertz by 1,000,000. Suppose if there 4.77 Mhz
is a 500 MHz processor then the operations will be equal to
500,000,000 per second. The operation, is the individual commands 8088 8 MHz 64 KB None 8 MHz
sent by the program. The faster is the processors bus and clock speed,
the faster is FPU’s (floating point units). This contributes the
mathematical portion of processor. 4.77 Mhz 4.77 Mhz
80286 12 MHz 16 MB None 12 MHz
10 MHz 10 MHz
4. INTEL MICROPROCESSORS 6 MHz 6MHz
The company ‘INTEL’ was founded by two scientists, Robert Noyce
and Gordon Moore in 1968. They aimed for semi-conductor memory
products. In 1971, Federico Faggin, Ted Hoff and Stanley Mazor
invented world’s first single chip microprocessor known as Intel Table 2. Intel Mobile Processors with specifications
4004. It had clock speed of 108 KHz, 2300 transistors, addressable
Processor Clock Speed
memory of 640 bytes, bus speed of 108 KHz and no cache. It was
commonly used for Busicom calculator and arithmetic manipulation. Intel Pentium Processor with 300 MHz
MMX Technology
Intel Pentium Processor with 266 MHz
4.1 Intel Earlier Processors MMX Technology
Intel increased its work quite fast. It launched its second chip after Intel Pentium Processor with 233-200 MHz
one year with increased parameters. It was named as 8008. This trend
continued every alternate year. The microprocessor were respectively MMX Technology
named as 4004, 8008, 8080, 8085, 8086, 8088, 80286. 8088 and
80286 were used for desktops and were the standard CPU”S for all
the IBM PC’s. Then after that came the series from Intel 386 DX
Processor to Intel 486 SL Processor (Nov, 92). The last one was 5. INTEL SINGLE-CORE PROCESSING
particularly designed for notebook PC’s. A standard processor has one core. Single core processors only
process one instruction at a time but they do use pipelines internally,
that allow several instructions to be processed together.
4.2 Intel Mobile Processors
Intel launched the mobile processors typically for mobile PC and
mini-notebooks from 1997 to 1999. They were Pentium Processors 5.1 Intel Pentium Processors
with MMX Technology. They had the clock speed of the range of Pentium processors were quite successful. They were single core
200 to 300 MHz. processors with higher performances.
Table 3. Intel Pentium Processors with specification
Processor No. Clock Bus speed Cache
4.3 Intel Desktop Processors of rate
Desktop processors were on the hike from 1993 to 2007. They were cor
all Pentium processors except in 2007 when Pentium dual core Pentium Single 60MHz 50-66 N/A
es
processors were launched. Desktop processors had clock speed of 66 MHz
MHz to 3.7 MHz. Dual Core processor contained cache of around 1 Pentium Single 120-300 60-66 N/A
MB and addressable memory up to 64 GB. They had bus speed of up
to 800 MHz. They were commonly used for desktop PC’s and mobile MMX MHz MHz
PC’s. Pentium Single 150-200 60,66 256 KiB

Table 1. Intel Earlier Processors with specifications Pro MHz MHz 512 KiB
1024 KiB
Processor Clock Addressable Cache Bus Pentium Single 233-450 66,100 256 KiB
Speed Memory Speed II MHz MHz 512 KiB

Pentium Single 450MHz- 100,133 256 KiB

4004 108 KHz 640 Bytes None 108 KHz
III 1.4 GHz MHz 512 KiB
8008 200 KHz 16 KB None 200 KHz
Pentium Single 1.3-3.8 400 MHz 256 KiB-
8080 2 MHz 64 KB None 2 MHz IV GHz 533 MHz 2MiB
800 MHz
8085 2 MHz 64 KB None 2 MHz
1066 MHz
 Pentium Single 3.2-3.73 800 MHz 512 KiB- Multiple cores can be used to run two programs side by side and
IV Extreme GHz 1066 MHz 1 MiB when an intensive program is running, (Video conversion, CD
Edition ripping etc.) another core can be utilized to run parallel work like
browser checking email etc. Multiple cores tend to be really valuable
when a program is run that can utilize more than one core to improve
the program’s efficiency and addressability. Programs such as
graphic software, games etc. can run more than one instruction at the
same time and deliver faster, smoother results. If CPU-intensive
5.2 Intel Atom and Celeron Processors software is used, multiple cores can more likely provide a better
Intel Atom and Intel Celeron were the processors which were computing experience.
available in both versions of single and double core.

Table 4. Intel Atom and Celeron Processors with 6.1 Dual-Core Processing
specifications Intel implemented dual core processors across every sector like
desktop, workstation, mobile, mainframe, These products include
Processor No. of Clock Bus speed Cache
cores rate Intel Core 2 Duo desktop and mobile processors, and Dual-Core Intel
Xeon 5100 processor 5100 series for dual-processor servers. The
Atom Single, 800MHz- 400 MHz 512 KiB- Dual-Core Intel Xeon 5100 server processor delivers up to 135
Double 2.13GHz 533 MHz 1 MiB percent performance improvements and up to a 40 percent reduction
in energy consumption over previous Intel server products. The
667 MHz
Intel Core 2 Duo desktop processor delivers up to a 40 percent
2.5 GT/s improvement in performance and up to a 40 percent reduction in
power as compared to today's high-end Intel Pentium D processor
Celeron Single, 266MHz- 66 MHz 0KiB- 960.4. The Intel Core 2 Duo mobile processor delivers greater
Double 3.6GHz 100 MHz 1MiB than 2X CPU performance5 and up to a 28 percent power
133 MHz reduction with new Intel Centrino Duo mobile technology laptops
based on the Intel Core 2 Duo processor as compared to
400 MHz previous-generation Intel Centrino mobile technology based
533 MHz laptops.
800 MHz
6.2 Quad-Core Technology
Intel Core 2 Extreme Quad-Core Processor was World’s First
5.3 Intel Xeon Processors Quad-Core for the Desktop. For today’s increasing need of
Intel Xeon processor had huge range of cores, that is single, double, multiprocessing, multithreading this quad-core technology serves the
quad, hexa, octa cores. purpose. It is great plus for gaming and multimedia processing
machines and engines. In addition to being excellent for intensive
multitasking, the Intel Core 2 Extreme quad-core processor is
Table 5. Intel Xeon Processor with specifications intended to provide impressive gaming performance, plenty of
Processor No. of Clock Bus speed Cache emphasis on thread-intensive games. Gamers can expect a smoother,
cores rate more exciting gaming experience through the distribution of artificial
Xeon Single, 400MHz- 100 MHz, 256 KiB- intelligence (AI), physics and rendering across four hardware
threads. Intel Core 2 Extreme quad-core processor can be ideal for
Double, 4.4GHz 133 MHz, 12Mib processor-intensive, highly threaded applications as well as it can be
Quad, 400 MHz, the top choice for multimedia enthusiasts, gamers, and workers who
Hexa, intend to demand multitasking environments. It is intended to feature
533 MHz,
Octa 2.66 GHz core speed and 1066 MHz front side bus speed.
667 MHz,
800 MHz,
6.3 Basic differences between i3, i5 and i7
1066MHz, i3, i5, i7 processors are great advancements of Intel. I3 is a dual core
1333MHz, processor, i5 can have both two or four cores, that is it can be dual
core or quad core depending upon the model being used, i7 can have
1600MHz,
two, four or six cores, that is dual core or quad core or hexa core,
4.8 GT/s, depending on the model being used.
5.86 GT/s, The crux has been shown in the following table :
6.4 GT/s Table 6. Processors and their number of cores, threads
No. of Threads
Processor No. of Cores (2 per core)

6. INTEL MULTI-CORE PROCESSING i3 2 4

A multi-core processor consist of two or more independent cores, 2 or 4
each core is capable of processing individual instructions. A dual- i5 4 or 8
core processor contains two cores, a quad-core processor contains (Depending
four cores, and a hexa-core processor contains six cores. on the model)
 2, 4 or 6 8.1 Athlon Classic
i7 4, 8 or 12
(Depending on the
model) The first Athlon processor of the series which is now called
Athlon classic, was the first processor to reach the speed of 1GHz.
It was launched with superior performance as compared to all the
x86 processors available at that time.The Athlon Classic is a
cartridge-based processor. In commercial terms, the Athlon
"Classic" was an enormous success. It was not just because of its
own merits, but also because Intel delayed a series of major
6.4 Differences between usage of i3, i5, i7 production, design, and quality control issues at this time. In
Choice of the processors depends on the type of work one wish to do particular, Intel suffered delays due to its transition to the 180 nm
with the computer. If a computer does a light-handed work, then production process, starting in late 1999 and running through to
there is no worth in spending a lot of money for a powerful mid-2000. There was also the shortage of Pentium III parts. In
processor. Or again there is no worth in purchasing a cheaper contrast, AMD enjoyed a remarkably smooth process transition and
processor which does not serve one’s purpose. had ample supplies available, causing Athlon sales to become quite
strong.
6.4.1 i3 processor
If one has to do simple word processing, spreadsheet etc. often listen Table 7. Athlon Classic processor specifications
to music and watch movies, i3 processor can be a good choice or any
dual core processor like core 2 duo. L1 Cache L2 Cache Clock rate
64 + 64 kB (Data + 512 kB 500-700 MHz (K7),
6.4.2 i5 processor Instructions) 550-1000 MHz
If one has to play occasional games and watch HD movies parallel
to doing the things mentioned for i3, then i5 processor can be a (K75)
good choice.

6.4.3 i7 processor
If one has to do graphic publishing, create music, do programming 8.2 Thunderbird (T-Bird)
and compiling, watch HD movies, play games which are visually It was the second generation Athlon. It was launched on June 5,
appealing parallel to all the things mentioned for i3 and i5, then a 2000. It was designed for the speeds ranging from 600 MHz to 1.4
quad core i5 or i7 can be a very good choice. GHz. Athlon Classic used to clock up to 1 GHz. So here it was an
advancement. However, the major difference was of the cache
design. There is a general rule that more cache improves
7. AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) performance but faster cache improves it further still. Hence, just as
Intel had done when they replaced the old Katmai- based
Microprocessors Pentium III with the much faster Coppermine-based Pentium
AMD was founded by Jerry Sanders in 1969. In 1972-74, AMD III, AMD replaced the 512 kB external reduced-speed cache of
went on public with their first manufacturing facility. In 1976-78, the Athlon Classic with 256 kB of on-chip, full-speed exclusive
AMD signed a cross-license agreement with Intel as there was a huge cache.
competition between the two. In 1981, sales and components got The Thunderbird was one of the most successful products of
doubled since 1978. In 1982, second source for 8086 and 8088 AMD. It had quite improved mainboard designs. In October 2000,
CPU’s got launched. 1985 was quite fruitful for AMD as sales the Athlon “C” had been introduced which raised the motherboard
touched the highest point in 1985. Year 1991 was again quite front-side bus speed from 100 MHz to 133 MHz and parallel to
important for AMD as that year AMD’s Am386 microprocessor that it provided around 10% of extra performance per clock.
family debuts through which AMD challenged Intel. ATI introduces
Mach8 chip and board products which were first ATI products to
process graphics independently of the CPU. In 1993, Am486 Table 8. Thunderbird (T-Bird) processor specifications
microprocessor family and flash memory got launched by AMD. In L1 Cache L2 Cache Clock rate
1994, agreement with Compaq was signed. One major partnership
announced in 1998 paired AMD with semiconductor giant Motorola. 64 + 64 kB (Data + 256 kB, fullspeed Slot A: 650–
In the announcement, Sanders referred to the partnership as creating Instructions) 1000 MHz
a "virtual gorilla" that would enable AMD to compete with Intel
Socket A, 100 MHz
on fabrication capacity while limiting AMD's financial outlay for
new facilities. This partnership also helped to co-develop copper- FSB (B-models):
based semiconductor technology, which would become a 600–1400 MHz
cornerstone of the K7 production process. In August 1999, AMD Socket A, 133 MHz
released the Athlon (K7) processor. FSB (C-models):
1000–1400 MHz
8. AMD ATHLON PROCESSORS
AMD designed and manufactured a series of x-86 compatible
processors. AMD gave this series the brand name as Athlon. Athlon 8.3 Athlon XP (Palomino)
means “contest” in Greek. First Athlon was released ion June 23, AMD released third generation Athlonits code name was
1999. Palomino. It was launched as Athlon XP on October 9, 2001. XP
meant to be “Extended Performance”. It is also believed to be an architecture and added a hardware data prefetch mechanism
unofficial reference to Microsoft Windows XP. Athlon XP was to take better advantage of available memory bandwidth.
launched at speeds between 1.33 GHz and 1.53 GHz. It January, Palomino was also the first socketed Athlon. It officially supported
2002, AMD enhanced this and released the subsequent 1.67 GHz dual processing. It was branded as Athlon MP. Palomino actually
Athlon XP 2000+. Palomino was the first K7 core to include the full came into existence first in mobiles. It was branded there as Mobile
SSE instruction set from the Intel Pentium III, as well as AMD's Athlon 4 (“Corvette”).
3DNow! Professional. It is around 10% faster than Thunderbird
at the same clock speed. The core has enhancements to the K7's
Table 9. Athlon XP (Palomino) processor of its release, Intel’s Pentium 4 had become more competitive.
specification AMD simply increases the L2 cache to 512 kB but it did not
make any impact as the Athlon pipeline was not as cache
constrained as of Pentium 4. AMD increased the performance
L1 Cache L2 Cache Clock rate but not as much as that it could beat Intel’s Pentium 4. The
64 + 64 kB (Data + 256 kB, fullspeed Athlon 4: 850– 800 MT/s bus used by many later Pentium 4 processors was
well out of the Athlon XP's reach. In order to reach the
Instructions) 1400 MHz same bandwidth levels, the Athlon XP's bus would have
Athlon XP: 1333– to be clocked at levels simply unreachable. To maintain or
exceed the performance of Intel's newer processors would
1733 MHz (1500+ require a significant redesign.
to 2100+)
Athlon MP: 1000– Table 11. Barton and Thorton processor specifications
1733 MHz L1 Cache L2 Cache Clock rate
64 + 64 kB (Data + 256 kB, fullspeed 1667–2200 MHz
Instructions) (2000+ to 3100+)
8.4 Thoroughbred (T-Bred) 133 MHz FSB:
It was fourth generation Athlon and was released on June 10,
2002. It had the speed of 1.8 GHz. It was released with two 1600–2133 MHz
cores: Tbred-A and Tbred-B. AMD was successful in reducing (2000+ to 2600+)
the production cost per processor but was not able to
expectedly reduce the heat and clock scalability. This occurred 166 MHz FSB:
because of the unmodified design of Palomino. AMD’s T-Bred 2083 MHz (2600+)
was targeted to replace Palomino but could not increase its
speed as compared to Palomino. T-Bred was only sold in the 200 MHz FSB:
versions of 1333 MHz to 1800 MHz. It was only able to 2200 MHz (3100+)
displace more production-costly Palomino. Thus AMD
redesigned T-Bred. It was already a complex structure of 8-
layer but now AMD added another ninth metal layer. Its
competitor Pentium 4 utilized only six. And its successor
Prescott used 7 layers. The Tbred-B was more improved in 8.6 Competitors of Athlon
headroom compared to Tbred-A. So it became very popular for
overlocking. While Tbred-A always struggled in reaching The major competitors of Athlon were Intel Pentium III, Pentium
clock- speeds above 1.9 GHz, Tbred-B could easily reach 2.3 IV, Celeron, Via C3 and C7, Transmeta Efficeon.
GHz and above.
Table 10. Thunderbird (T-Bred) processor specifications 9. CELERON PROCESSOR
L1 Cache L2 Cache Clock rate Celeron is the brand name given by Intel to those processors
which are typically aimed at budget of an individual. Because they
64 + 64 kB (Data + 256 kB, fullspeed Thoroughbred "A": aimed at the budget, high and advanced features are intentionally
Instructions) 1400–1800 MHz disabled by Intel. Generally, the cache is also of smaller memory
(1600+ to 2200+) in the Celeron processor. There were variable performance issues
noticed due to the lack of these features. Most of the Celeron
Thoroughbred "B":
processors gave the degraded performance, but there were few
1400–2250 MHz which were known for very good performances. But generally
Celeron processor had less performance than the higher-end
(1600+ to 2800+)
processors of Intel, although it was intentional. The first Celeron
processor was based on Intel Pentium II. Further versions of
Celeron processors were based on Pentium III, Pentium IV,
Pentium M and Intel Core brands. The latest Celeron Processor
was launched in July 2011 and was based on the Intel i3/i5/i7
brands. Although, this design was independent but had only about
66% of the cache memory as of Intel i3 processor.
8 . 5 B arton an d T h orton
It was fifth generation processor. It got released in early 2003. 10 . VIA C3 PRO CE S S O RS
Its L2 cache was increased to 512 KB. It did not have higher VIA C3 family is designed by Centaur Technology and sold by
clock rates than Thoroughbred-core processors. By the time VIA Technologies. It has been majorly aimed at the personal
computers. Intel had great performance desktop processors. Transmeta design
was incapable of beating that. One of the major problems was
Transmeta’s radical new approach to microprocessor design.
1 0 . 1 Des i gn Meth o d ol ogy Transmeta processors couldn’t run the x86 software by
Although, VIA’s chips are quite slower than AMD and Intel, on themselves. Despite using the best emulation technology,
the basis of clock, but they are quite small in size, very easy to Transmeta was incapable of matching the performance of Intel in
manufacture and of low power. Hence, they are always quite the field of desktop microprocessors. Now the company decided to
attractive in terms of embedded systems. Mobile marketplace is move its focus on the notebook and embedded processors. But
also finding it attractive nowadays. Samuel 2 Ezra cores were used nothing went right for Transmeta. When Intel, AMD, VIA and
for VIA Cyrix III and then was renames as VIA C3. Nehemiah other popular companies took over, the crusoe was in the danger.
Cores were used for VIA C5. This feature of VIA has always So, in all the Transmeta gave its shot but Intel wins as usual.
turned in its own favor in spite of higher range processors of Intel.
VIA is trying to narrow down the gap of performance which has
been created. 13. SUMMARY/CONCLUSION
This was an attempt to make best possible analysis and basic
11. TRANSMETA CRUSOE comparison among the microprocessors which are popularly used.
As such there are thousands of microprocessors, but I hope this
AND EFFICEON gives a general idea of the processors in the market including their
Crusoe was the first in the family of x-86 compatible history and strategies. In sum, Intel has always been at the top of
microprocessors developed by Transmeta. The second generation the market and AMD always had potential to give Intel a good
processor of Transmeta was Efficeon. It implies a software engine competition. Other companies are also famous for some of their
which converts the code written for processor to the native processors and have their own pros and cons.
instruction set of the chip. Efficeon stresses computational
efficiency, low power consumption, and a low thermal footprint
just like its predecessor, the Transmeta Crusoe.
14. REFERENCES
[1] http://www.intel.com
12. TRANSMETA V/S INTEL- [2] h t t p : / / w w w . m a x i m u m p c . c o m
TRANSMETA FAILED! [3] http://www.electronicshub.org/
Transmeta became out of funds from the investors. Transmeta
wanted to give good competition to Intel, but could not achieve [4] http://www.amd.com
the benchmarks. Intel always had huge backing of finances. [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Intel_processors
Someone who desires to compete Intel in whole sole manner,
needs to have huge backing. Intel has the all alone supremacy in [6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athlon
the world of microprocessors. It is a mighty empire in itself.
Transmeta was founded in 1995. Intel had vast financial [7] http://mintywhite.com
resources, world-class engineering and its own chip fabrication
plants. Compared to that, Transmeta was a quite small body which [8] “Floating Point Processor.” Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia.
was a semiconductor company. Transmeta always tried really
hard but it got realized after many years that it cannot beat Intel.