Why there's no Pentium II and III MCUs being made?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the potential for Pentium II and III microcontrollers (MCUs) and the reasons why they are not currently being produced. Participants explore the performance characteristics, efficiency, and historical context of these processors in relation to modern alternatives.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory, Technical explanation, Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants suggest that Pentium II and III could serve as effective MCUs due to their speed, although they acknowledge that significant modifications might be necessary.
  • Others argue that the high power consumption and excessive heat generation of these processors, indicated by their reliance on fans, make them less desirable compared to modern, more efficient designs.
  • A participant recalls an Intel project that aimed to create a graphics processor using multiple Pentium cores in parallel, which was ultimately scrapped, raising questions about the viability of such architectures.
  • There is a suggestion that ARM core processors are preferred for high-end MCUs due to their superior speed and power efficiency compared to Pentium processors.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express differing views on the feasibility and desirability of using Pentium II and III as MCUs, with some advocating for their potential and others highlighting significant drawbacks. The discussion remains unresolved regarding the practicality of these processors in modern applications.

Contextual Notes

Limitations include the lack of consensus on the modifications required for Pentium processors to function as MCUs and the dependence on definitions of efficiency and performance in the context of modern computing needs.

Alex_Sanders
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They would make really great MCUs, the speed would be more than sufficient, other than the fact that some major modification might have to be made.

And they got tons of fans!
 
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Alex_Sanders said:
And they got tons of fans!
Tons of fans points to power inefficiency. That possibly was their greatest drawback, excessive waste heat for a chip of their level of sophistication. Today's designers want efficiency, and a replacement for those old CPUs would probably not require even one fan. http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/3195/roflm.gif
 
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I think Intel had a project for a new generation of "software based" graphics processor that basically used many Pentium cores in parallel that ran software that made the calcualtions that hardware GPUs make. I remember they hyped it up a lot.

This has since been scrapped I think.

Also, why make pentiums when you can make an ARM core processor that is faster and much more power efficient? That's what most high-end MCUs are.
 
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Here is the intel GPU that used pentium cores that I was referring to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larrabee_(microarchitecture )

And from the article, here is the latest development, no longer being used as a GPU:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_MIC
 
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