Parts/CPUs/Intel i860/XP
CPUs · i860 · 1991
Intel i860/XP
RISC processor with on-chip message-passing hardware. Intel’s attempt to sell its own architecture into HPC before x86 took the market.
Why this part
Intel's attempt to sell its own RISC architecture into technical computing before x86 was credible there. The i860 had a wide floating-point unit and, in the XP revision, message-passing hardware on the die itself, which is why the Paragon's fabric could be a plain 2D mesh rather than something exotic. It was notoriously hard to compile for: peak throughput depended on software keeping its pipelines fed by hand, and real applications rarely saw a large fraction of it. Intel abandoned the line and put the same lesson to work with Pentium Pro on ASCI Red three years later.
Systems using this part
- Systems
- 2
- Rmax underneath
- 270.5 GFlop/s
- Units recorded
- 6,752
| System | Role | Country | Units | System Rmax | Supplied by | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intel Paragon XP/S 150 1995-01 | CPU | USA | 3,072 | 127.1 GFlop/s | Intel | #3 → |
| Intel Paragon XP/S 140 1993 | CPU | USA | 3,680 | 143.4 GFlop/s | Intel | #1 → |
“Units recorded” sums only the edges where a public source states a quantity. It is a floor, not a total, and should never be read as installed base.