This document provides an overview of different processor architectures including RISC, accumulator, stack, and register-based architectures. It discusses the MIPS RISC architecture and why it is considered RISC. It then describes different processor examples like the 80x86 IA-32 architecture, the Pentium Pro, II, III, and IV, and the Java Virtual Machine stack-based architecture. It provides details on the complex IA-32 instruction set and addressing modes as well as performance enhancements in the Pentium series like out-of-order execution, deeper pipelining, caches, and hyperthreading.