# i386 vs i686
i386 and i686 are both part of the x86 family of processors. They just refer to the specific age of the processor platform. i386 is an older platform (early 90s?) used back when 386 processors were used in machines. Then this was upgraded to 486 processors, which was the same basic instruction set as 386 just faster and newer. 586 was another upgraded and was when the term Pentium started floating around. Eventually all of these got encapsulated into the x86 architecture name. i686 just refers to the 6th generation of x86 architecture.
For all intents and purposes i386 and i686 are the same thing, just that i686 is a lot newer. They will have some additional instruction sets, but will be backwards compatible with i386. I would venture a guess that all of the processes you find today that use x86 would be classified as i686 processors.
x86 refers to a processor family. x86_64 is different than x86 (it is the 64 bit brother of x86). There are also Alpha processors, Sparc, ARM, PPC. These all refer to different processor families.
If you are installing an OS and a CPU is from the x86_64 processor family, then you cannot install an ARM based OS on that hardware.
Intel released the following processors on the dates shown
June 8, 1978 - 8086
February 1982 - 80286
October 17, 1985 - Intel386™ DX Processor <- this was the first i386
June 16, 1988 - Intel386™ SX Processor
April 10, 1989 - Intel486™ DX Processor
March 22, 1993 - Intel® Pentium® Processor <- sometimes referred to as i586
November 1, 1995 - Intel® Pentium® Pro Processor
May 7, 1997 - Intel® Pentium® II Processor <- I think this was the first of the i686
February 26, 1999 - Intel® Pentium® III Processor
see http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/quickrefyr.htm 156 for a complete list of all the Intel processors
November 20, 2000 - Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor
#notes
i386 and i686 are both part of the x86 family of processors. They just refer to the specific age of the processor platform. i386 is an older platform (early 90s?) used back when 386 processors were used in machines. Then this was upgraded to 486 processors, which was the same basic instruction set as 386 just faster and newer. 586 was another upgraded and was when the term Pentium started floating around. Eventually all of these got encapsulated into the x86 architecture name. i686 just refers to the 6th generation of x86 architecture.
For all intents and purposes i386 and i686 are the same thing, just that i686 is a lot newer. They will have some additional instruction sets, but will be backwards compatible with i386. I would venture a guess that all of the processes you find today that use x86 would be classified as i686 processors.
x86 refers to a processor family. x86_64 is different than x86 (it is the 64 bit brother of x86). There are also Alpha processors, Sparc, ARM, PPC. These all refer to different processor families.
If you are installing an OS and a CPU is from the x86_64 processor family, then you cannot install an ARM based OS on that hardware.
Intel released the following processors on the dates shown
June 8, 1978 - 8086
February 1982 - 80286
October 17, 1985 - Intel386™ DX Processor <- this was the first i386
June 16, 1988 - Intel386™ SX Processor
April 10, 1989 - Intel486™ DX Processor
March 22, 1993 - Intel® Pentium® Processor <- sometimes referred to as i586
November 1, 1995 - Intel® Pentium® Pro Processor
May 7, 1997 - Intel® Pentium® II Processor <- I think this was the first of the i686
February 26, 1999 - Intel® Pentium® III Processor
see http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/quickrefyr.htm 156 for a complete list of all the Intel processors
November 20, 2000 - Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor
#notes