Desktop CPU Comparison - September 99

Quick Reference Table

We won't be going into much detail as to the architecture of the processors or how they work in this guide as this comparison is intended to be a buyer's tool and not solely a technical reference document.  However, in order to make specification comparison easier, the below table sums up the basic differences between the processors compared here:

The CPUs: What made it and what didn't

There are obviously quite a few desktop x86 CPUs that have been released over the past 2 years, and a comprehensive comparison of all of them would take much longer to perform and would be even more complex than the comparison you're about to read.  The processors that did make it into the comparison were all desktop Intel processors clocked at 300MHz or greater (excluding the Celeron 300A which has since dried up in supply) and all desktop AMD processors clocked at 300MHz or greater (excluding the K6-300, only K6-2 and above processors were included). 

There is one glaring absence from the comparison which would be all contributions from Cyrix over the past 2 years, and unfortunately due to the relative lack thereof Cyrix has been excluded from the comparison.  With VIA's recent acquisition of Cyrix, we can expect to see quite a bit more productivity out of the company that once dominated the Winstone scores with their 6x86 line of processors.