What Came After the 486?

a day ago

CPUs lacked brand names until the 1990s, identified by part numbers and clock speeds.
Intel introduced the Pentium in 1993 as the successor to the 486, marking the start of branded CPUs.
The Pentium was significantly faster than the 486, with initial speeds of 60 and 66 MHz.
Intel faced competition from AMD and Cyrix, who also produced 486 and Pentium-class CPUs.
AMD and Cyrix developed their own Pentium successors, like the AMD K5 and Cyrix 6x86, but struggled to match Intel's performance.
Legal battles over CPU cloning and naming schemes led to market confusion and the need for trademarkable names like Pentium.
IBM and other manufacturers produced 486 clones under licensing agreements, affecting Intel's market dominance.
NexGen, IDT, and Rise attempted to compete with Intel but faced challenges in performance and market acceptance.
AMD emerged as Intel's primary competitor, especially with the Athlon and later Ryzen series.
Modern CPU branding by Intel (Core i-series) and AMD (Ryzen series) simplifies performance class identification but retains complexity in comparing generations.

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