Intel's Pentium Gives Way To Core 2 Duo

Almost 13 years of dominance in the desktop processors' area ended yesterday for Intel’s Pentium, with the launch of their next generation Core 2 Duo chips, that more or less emobody Intel's new corporate slogan, "Leap Ahead".

The official debut of Core 2 Duo, based on the new Core Microarchitecture, is one of the biggest moves for Intel in more than a decade, marking their hope to regain the crown from rival AMD.

The essential evolution for Core Microarchitecture is the reduction in energy consumption, combined with a more efficient computing power using parallel systems.

I remember when Pentium processors were launched back in the 90's, and how their speeds kept incrementing almost exponentially every month, and how excited everyone got about the endless possibilities these stronger processors would offer.
Looking back at those times now, I can't help but feel that they were more exciting and interesting times for the desktop hardware market than the first half of this decade, that has been rather stagnant and slow.

I remember how people who had no idea about computers whatsoever picked up the brand name Pentium from somewhere, and made it their main criteria when thinking about buying a pc.
They'd just walk into a pc store and say that they wanted to buy a "Pentium", as if that said it all, and well, more or less, it did, as the vendor would just set them up with the latest Pentium processor and a standard configuration surrounding itm and they'd go home happy with their "Pentium".

Now the era of the Pentium is over, and a new era is beginning. I wonder how this era will turn out and what future it holds for us. Let's hope it's an exciting one.

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