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The MMX Files Investigating the phenomena surrounding Intel's new MMX technology.

By Cheryl J. Goldberg

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Computer users can't win. As soon as one processortechnology becomes widely adopted, another comes along that makesit seem antiquated--or at least somewhat less thanstate-of-the-art. And so it is that Intel has recently rolled outits trademarked MMX media enhancement technology for Pentium andPentium Pro processors. (Pentium Pros with MMX technology are nowcalled Pentium IIs.)

Most major hardware vendors already offer Pentium MMX PCs, andPentium IIs are expected to be available from some computermanufacturers by the time you read this. Intel is targeting thePentium MMX at the home user and positioning the higher-performancePentium II as its business processor. The Pentium II is designed tofully support operating systems such as Windows NT and OS/2 (and torun Windows 95 much faster than the Pentium does).

What Is MMX?