Intel Processor Generations ~ a quick historical review

Intel CPUs have changed a lot since they released their first processor all the way back in 1971... There was NO dispute - AMD was first to 1GHz, and AMD created the 64-bit instruction set. The 4GB barrier in 32bit CPUs was broken in late 1995 (~10 years after the 386) with the introduction of the Physical Address Extension in the Pentium Pro. Microsoft wouldn’t let you take advantage of this (even though they splashed Physical Address Extension everywhere in XP) in consumer grade operating systems.