The iCOMP Index
I thought this was interesting.
Looking at this "Intel Technology Briefing" CD-ROM I noticed in the system requirements that it specified a minimum iCOMP rating of 100.
It intrigued me slightly so I found this page with a chart of iCOMP ratings. It appears that the index was computed thrice during its lifetime, from the 386SX to the Pentium !!! 1 GHz:
iCOMP is a weighed conglomerate of several benchmarks. The original version debuted in 1992 and was based on PC Bench 7.0.1, SPECint92, SPECfp92 and Whetstone.
Version 2.0 was released in 1996 and was based on a combination of CPUmark32, Norton SI-32, SPECint_base95, SPECfp_base95, and the Intel Media Benchmark.
Version 3.0 was released in 2000 and was based on a combination of WinTune 98 Advanced CPU Integer test, CPUmark 99, 3D WinBench 99-3D Lighting and Transformation Test, MultimediaMark 99, Jmark 2.0 Processor Test, and WinBench 99-FPU WinMark.
In the end, it seems that iCOMP was a good comparative tool for users to examine the performance of the various Intel CPUs out there at the time. One could easily understand how much of a performance boost they're getting if they choose a P5-100 over a 486DX4-100 (nearly 2x)!
Luckily for Intel, they ditched it as the Tualatin (PIII) and Williamette (NetBurst) came onto the scene and given the early P4 horror stories, the iCOMP ratings for the latter processors would have been embarrassing.
For further information on iCOMP versions 2 and 3, look at the following archived Intel web pages:
http://web.archive.org/web/19961220031133/http://www.intel.com/procs/perf/icomp/index.htm (v2)
http://web.archive.org/web/20010401005159/http://www.intel.com/procs/perf/icomp/index.htm (v3)