Pentium MMX 233MHz

Last CPU from Intel intended for desktop market for Socket 7 format. Still popular on eBay and the like, but you could also buy this one new - years after it's release.

Possibly kept in production for industrial purposes. AMD's K6-2 series became popular for notebooks later on and desktop market switched to either the AMD K6-2 or Pentium 2.

During 1997 Intel introduced a new package for their chips - the PPGA package which was not made of ceramic, but was a PCB with pins and a heat spreader on its top to protect the chip. Unlike the Pentium MMX CPGA which was less common, most MMX had this chip package and Intel kept on using it until the 533MHz + Celeron and Pentium III coppermine chips with their FCPGA package that arrived three years later.

This particular piece was produced in April 1997.

CYRIX MII - 300GP (233MHz)

This Black topped version of the Cyrix MII indicates that it was made by IBM and not the National Semiconductor Corp. It is thicker than the Gold topped versions available and required 2.9V rather than 2.2V - this means it runs hotter still.

This example is from 1999 and is one of the last manufactured.

'Classic' Pentium 75Mhz

The Pentium CPU was a milestone for the x86 architecture somehow - it was the first superscalar x86 chip and the first to be a serious alternative to RISC CPUs. When those Pentiums finally were released, they were still far away from being available to the ordinary customer. On the one hand, they were horribly expensive, on the other hand Intel didn't want to switch their production to Pentium chips as long as their 486 chips were selling in large numbers. In those early days, Intel could get a much higher number of 486 cores from one wafer that pentium cores because of its core size, in addition with large die sizes the probability of a core being defective rises. While there was no real competitor on the market (AMD still wasn't allowed to sell their 486 chips) there was no good reason to waste production facilities to the expensive production of Pentiums while any wafer was needed to meet the demand for 486 chips. Intel chose its name 'Pentium' instead of the more sensible '586' because Intel feared that their competitors would release their chips under the name '586' too, like they did with their 386 and 486 chips. In contrast, the Name 'Pentium' could be protected by copyright. This one hasn't got the infamous FDIV-flaw. However, I must admit that I was hardly able to get this one running reliably under high load, this chip gets really hot!

586? No, 486? No, 386? Uh-huh!

The oldest CPU in my collection - a 386 running at a whopping 25MHz! Though designed in 1985, it was years later that these DX variants (with an integrated maths processor) were even affordable. This is one of the last 386's from 1992. The 486 was already available and kicking its ass.