Intel reveals early P6 benchmarks

Electronic News, July 31, 1995 by Jim DeTar

SANTA CLARA, CALIF.--While unveiling a 150MHz version of the P6 here last week, Intel Corp. revealed preliminary benchmarks positioning the new microprocessor for 32-bit applications running in servers and workstations as well as desktops using Microsoft's forth-coming Windows 95 operating system.

At a technology briefing here, Intel indicated it will still channel PC customers to the Pentium in the near-term while it ramps the P6 on server and workstation systems and independent software vendors (ISV)s ramp 32-bit software applications. Some industry observers say Intel wants to avoid channel conflict with Pentium, which continues on the steepest upward ramp in the company's history.

Intel's P6 new positioning slogan is "P6: Performance for 32-bit Software." Michael Fister, Intel's P6 division general manager, said "At introduction we will have 100 applications that are 32-bit. A year later there will be 100 more."

But Intel conceded at the briefing that PC users would see very little benefit by moving from Pentium to the P6 for 16-bit applications--an issue of much industry speculation in recent weeks. "The P6 adds minimal performance for desktop PCs on mainstream applications," Mr. Fister said.

Market research firm International Data Corp. (IDC) estimates that 32-bit operating systems will cross over 16-bit DOS/Windows to become mainstream later this year, and by 1996 80 percent of new PCs shipped will be equipped with 32-bit operating systems.

The newly unveiled 150MHz P6 will be available simultaneously with the 133MHz P6 the company previously introduced. During the briefing last week, Intel provided a variety of benchmarks (some of them simply estimates for the 150MHz version based on scaling up results for the 133MHz P6) for PC applications as well as server and workstation applications.

The disclosure of a 150MHz version substantiated earlier unconfirmed reports that the company would come in with a P6 device at that level. Both the 133MHz and 150MHz P6s will initially be manufactured on 0.5-micron process with a shrink to a 0.35-micron process expected in 1H96. Industry observers have estimated that the 133MHz P6 will enter the market at a price point of roughly $1,400 in quantities of 1,000.

Intel estimates the 150MHz P6 will have a SPECint92 benchmark rating of 220, which is slightly more than twice the performance level of the currently shipping 100MHz Pentium. For floating point performance, Intel said the 150MHz P6 will likely come in with a SPECfp92 rating of 215. And in terms of server system performance, the 150MHz P6 was rated at about 1.85 times the performance of Pentium-100 on SYSmark for (Windows) NT.

Mr. Fister commented "This is consistent with where we targeted the device." He cited a variety of server applications for P6 including transaction processing, decision support, image rendering and application servers, as well as servers for the expanding Worldwide Web. "That (web server) is not the most CPU-intensive but that's because it is in its infancy," he said.

Although P6 is suited for servers, Intel is not avoiding the mainstream PC market, he claimed. "It's (P6) not targeted to avoid anything--it is server-targeted because it's a good fit. I'm sure mainstream (PC) applications will scale up quickly."

The SPEC benchmark results are preliminary--the figures for the 150MHz P6, as noted, for example, are data that was scaled up from 133MHz P6 measurements, and the SYSmark numbers were unofficial results derived from tests done using a beta version of NT.

In releasing preliminary benchmarks for various applications, Intel primarily compared the 133MHz and 150MHz P6s against the company's currently-shipping 100MHz Pentium. Preliminary data was collected for Windows 3.1 applications using Borland "Paradox 5.0," Microsoft "Power Point 4.0," "Lotus 123 5.0" and Microsoft "Word 6.0." With the Pentium-100 having a relative benchmark rating of "1.0, Intel's research indicated the P6-133 running Paradox on Windows 3.1 would only provide an estimated 1.12x increase in performance. The P6-150 would come down from that level to just 1.10x the performance of a Pentium-100.

Similarly, running Word 6.0, P6-133 would provide a 1.18x increase in speed over Pentium-100, and the P6-150 would not offer any performance increase whatsoever over Pentium-100.

P6, however, fared much better running a beta version of Windows 95 and beta applications. For Microsoft "Excel" on Windows 95, P6-150 is estimated to run 1.42x faster than Pentium-100; and for Power Point the P6-150 will realize an estimated 1.70x gain.

For 32-bit workstation applications, the P6s not surprisingly also had good results. For this suite of tests, Intel measured the P6s against both the Pentium-100 and Pentium-133 on a variety of application packages, again giving the Pentium-100 a relative benchmark value of "1.0." For Adobe "Photoshop," The Pentium-133 yields a 1.25x gain, and P6-133 offers a 1.57x performance jump. Using data scaled from P6-133/66 measurements, Intel estimates that P6-150 would provide a 1.69x gain over Pentium-100. On the integer-intensive Mathsoft's "MathCAD" application package P6 came out stronger. Pentium-133 was rated at 1.26x; P6-133 was rated at 2.03x; and P6-150 estimated to achieve a 2.19x gain.