Basics

• The Pentium is an entire computer Central Processing Unit (CPU) on a single chip. Previously, the components of the CPU were spread out over several chips. Processing a computer instruction is much faster if you don't have to go "off-chip" for some of the processing. Speeding up the processing of each instruction speeds up the entire program.
  
  

On-Chip Cache

• The Pentium has some cache memory "on-chip." Cache memory is where the piece of the program that is currently being worked on is stored. If the cache is on the chip, it takes a lot less time to fetch each new instruction to work on -- which makes the program run faster.
  
  

Super Scaler Processing

• The Pentium used a process called "pipelining" to process one instruction while fetching the next one. It is like using a washer and dryer at the same time when processing multiple loads of laundry instead of waiting for each load to be washed and then dried before processing the next load. The result: twice the speed.