PC Week to publish independent testing results of Intel Pentium processor flaws

Business Wire, Dec 16, 1994

MEDFORD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 16, 1994--PC Week, the leading IS newsweekly and PC Magazine, the largest computer publication (both published by Ziff-Davis Publishing Co.), today announced they will publish independent testing results of Intel's (NASDAQ:INTC) Pentium processor. According to technical tests conducted by testing laboratories at both magazines, the ramifications of the errors found in Intel's Pentium processor are more significant than Intel has claimed; while the severity of the damage caused by the errors is less significant than IBM (NYSE:IBM) has reported.

The Findings

The tests conducted by both magazines concluded that errors can occur on the order of every two months to ten years when floating-point divide (FDIV) is invoked. "At PC Week's Lab, we tested the Pentium chip on a wide range of architectures using many different operating systems found that claims made by both Intel and IBM did not accurately portray real usage behavior," said Peter Coffee, advanced technologies analyst for PC Week. Intel claims that an error will occur only every 27,000 years while IBM claims that the typical spreadsheet user could incur an error every 24 days. Such errors are far below the level of accuracy assumed in most business decision making and will rarely appear, even in dollars-and-cents calculations working with large sums in the millions or billions. However, the degree of risk is dependent on how much a user makes calculations that require floating point division.

"As a result of a flaw in the Pentium chip, engineers and scientists will probably find the level of possible errors unacceptable, as will most people using a spreadsheet for complex financial calculations," said Peter Coffee. "Most good financial software products will not use the floating point function, and calculations won't be affected, but users are going to have to talk to their software providers to know them for sure," he added.

"These test results indicate that there is real reason for business users to consider carefully their Pentium application use," said Dan Farber, editor-in-chief of PC Week. "If they are not doing work that will be affected by the error, then they will never experience it and can save themselves a lot of expense and trouble. If they are in a 'high risk' group, they need to take Intel up on its offer to replace the chip."

"This problem leaves the industry with no winners and too many losers," said Michael Miller, editor-in-chief of PC Magazine. "Most system vendors lose because this has confused many customers, causing them to possibly delay purchases unnecessarily. Customers who do complex work lose because they will have to double check their results. And many customers lose because they are worrying about problems they will never see."

PC Week Labs and PC Magazine Labs are Ziff-Davis publications and part of a worldwide lab group of nine Ziff Davis Labs.

A white paper detailing PC Week's findings, testing procedures, executable and source code and a Q&A produced by PC Magazine, PC Magazine UK and PC Week on the Pentium chip is now available on ZiffNet in the PC Week Forum (GO PCWEEK), Library 2, Labs/Netweek or via the Internet at PC Week's World Wide Web site at http://www.ziff.com/-pcweek. Hard copies will be made available to interested parties through inquiry by dialing Cathy Cantwell at 617/393-3753.

PC Magazine is the largest computer publication with a circulation of more than one million.

Headquartered in Medford, Mass., PC WEEK is the leading IS newsweekly and is published by Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. PC WEEK reaches a controlled subscriber base that includes more than 260,000 qualified buyers. PC WEEK is the computer industry's leading publisher of demographic editions, with a system of newspapers that extends the coverage of PC WEEK to meet the specific information needs of targeted subscriber groups. PC WEEK's system of newspapers includes PC WEEK/Inside, edited for qualified computer industry professionals engaged in marketing and manufacturing; PC WEEK Netweek, edited for volume buyers of networking product; as well as the UNIX, Reseller and Application Development demographic advertising sections.

CONTACT: FitzGerald Communications

              Jennifer Costello, 617/494-9500
                     or
              PC Week
              Cathy Cantwell, 617/393-3753