Cyrix Corp stole a march on the other pin-compatible iAPX-86 clone designers on Friday when it formally launched its M1 Pentium-class micrprocessor as the 6×86, claiming that it matches Intel Corp’s 133MHz Pentium and is faster than the Pentium Pro (on the mass of 16-bit code that represents the vast majority of what is out there, presumably. First takers for the chip are AST Research Inc, Seiko Epson Co and Peacock AG of Wunnenberg Haaren, and Cyrix claims that Compaq Computer Corp has also expressed support. Despite being claimed to match the 133MHz Pentium, the initial version of the 6×86 is clocked at 100MHz. As for the 150MHz Pentium Pro, industry reports show the part runs up to 20% slower than the Pentium 133 running Windows desktop software, the company said. The superscalar, superpipelined processor features register renaming, data dependency removal, multi-branch prediction, speculative execution and out-of-order completion to refine and enhance performance. The 296-pin grid array package fits the P54C socket with minor modifications. The 100MHz 6×86 is available now and costs $450 for 1,000-up. It will be fabricated by IBM Corp and SGS-Thomson Microelectronics NV.
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