The Tech Archived · VIDEO ESSAY

What happened to Cyrix? The Chip Maker That Beat Intel On Price Then AMD Erased It

In the late 1980s, a small team of chip designers left Texas Instruments and set out to do something that looked almost impossible: build x86 processors without Intel's permission and sell them cheaper than Intel could afford to respond to. For nearly a decade, Cyrix did exactly that, reaching tens of millions of machines and forcing Intel into price cuts it did not want to make. This is the story of how they built it, why it worked, and what combination of competitive pressure, engineering limitations, and acquisition decisions erased one of the most interesting companies the PC industry ever produced. #Cyrix, #Intel, #AMD, #x86 processor history, #1990s PC hardware, #semiconductor industry, #budget PC market, #tech history