13 posts tagged “intel”

 So I've been meaning to get a new CPU for quite a while now. Like, since I got the computer. I've upgraded pretty much everything else since I got it over a year and a half ago. Pretty much everything except the motherboard has been replaced, but the last thing that I need to change was the CPU. I worked a little over March break and went out and bought an AMD X2 4200+. It's not all that much much faster then my old 3200+, but it is Dual Core, which should speed things up like "backing up" DVD's *wink, wink* and things of that nature. I also fried a stick of RAM a little over a month ago, so I have to replace that, but it's only going to be about $15. After that, I might upgrade the RAM after that, but that's it for this box. After that, it's not really worth it in my mind to upgrade to either Intel Core 2 or AMD Phenom. That would involve getting a new motherboard and processor and possibly new memory, which I might as well go and get a new computer. No, I think go for a Mac for my next computer. Probably a Macbook, get a nice 20" display and be done with it. I'll keep the PC around, but I really don't think that it's worth it for the amount of effort and money  that's required to play games and such. I've never really been that kind of a user anyway, I always prefered to work with Digital Media such as music and video's.

  

    It seems that Price cuts seems to be the thing that everyone is doing to boost marketshare these days. First, on Monday, Sony cut the price of the PS3 by $100 in the US bringing the price of the 60 GB PS3 down to $500. They also announced an 80 GB PS3, although, I don't understand why you would by an 80 GB PS3 when the HD is upgradable. Anyway, I would buy a PS3 if a) I had the money and b) I didn't have all the stupid tax to pay on it. Unlike in the US, where there is no federal tax, here you have both Federal tax 6%) and Provincial sales tax (8%) which adds up for a total of 14%, which really kind of sucks when buying big ticket items like the PS3 or a computer or a HDTV. 
    Secondly, and the more exciting of the price cuts in my mind, is the fact that once again, AMD has cut prices on it's processors in order to compete with Intel. They have eliminated the 3600+ and 3800+ X2 processors from the lineup with the 4000+ Brisbane and 4200+ Windsor cores now the low end dual core processors with all the remaining dual cores processors priced under $200 (without tax). I'm quite excited about this because I'm looking to upgrade my single core 3200+ probably to either a 4000+ or a 4200+. That along with the memory is all I need to upgrade to make my computer a somewhat midrange gaming machine. I'm looking forward to putting an X2 into my machine by the end of the summer. If anyone was planning on building or upgrading there AMD based system, now would be the time to do it.

More and more, I'm seeing that you might need 2 PSU's if your building a high end or even a mid-range gaming PC in the next year. The fact of the matter is that graphics cards keep on sucking more and more power and PSU's just can't keep up. The highest rated PSU that I've seen are 1000W. Considering that the new ATI card the 2900XT draws an appauling 215W at peak load. That's esssentially the load of my entire system onto one video card. and things can only good uphill from here. So now high end enthuiseits are proposing that 2 PSU's be put into a system. One for the main set of components, the CPU, the RAM, the Hard Drive and Optical Drive, but a second PSU for t

he GPU. I can see it happening I mean, for the amount of performance that your getting out a GPU core, the top end I think is somehere around 600 MHz (granted the memory is clocked much higher, mine's at 1.45 Ghz, the new nvidia cards go somewhere around 2 Ghz.) 215W is a lot to ask for a graphics card. So say hpyithetically that OEM's do decide to go ahead with the 2 PSU concept. Can you imagine if you wanted to run SLI or Crossfire? You might as well put another 500W power supply in they're. This could cause amajor shakeup in the hardware industry. Not only will Intel have to reexamine the ATX power standard (currently there is only one ATX power connector on most motherboard, server motherboards might have more.) If your going to put a second power connector on the motherboard, your probably going to need to revamp the entire architecture. Case makers will also have to do some redesign, unless they can manage to put the PSU into a 3.5" or a 5.25" bay, which is unlikely. Needless to say that both ATI and nvidia need to figure out what they're going to do with the graphics card business. With AMD/ATI trying to tie the GPU into the CPU, graphics may become a thing of the past very shorty. For know though, I'm sticking with my new 7600 GT.

 So today was Apple's quarterly conference call and by all indications, Apple is still growing. In fact, profits where up 100% from last quarter. And the Mac and iPod are both gaining marketshare. Mac sales  grew by 36% shipping 1.5 million Macs while the iPod gained 24% shipping over 10 million iPods. All I can say is WOW. Apple is growing by leaps and bounds. I predict that this is the begining of the second golden age. The first golden age was in the 1980's when Steve Jobs was in the hot seat and they invented the Macintosh. Things went downhill from there with CEO's like Sculley, Spindler and Amelio took the company on a downward slope. With the return of Steve Jobs, things changed for the better. The iPod solved cashflow problems while OS X gave Apple hope in the OS market after a few embarrasing few years holding onto OS 9. Now Apple's on a roll. The consumer market, after shunning Mac's for years are starting to see that they can actually be decent computers. You can credit Intel and Steve Jobs as well as Jonathon Ive for creating beautiful, fast, functional computers. Now, the Company is better off than it was in it's short history. Aside from a few minor technical glitches, they're on track to increase marketshare. I plan on buying a Mac in the next few years and I plan on convincing my parents to invest in one as well when they buy they're next computer.
Just watch, Apple will outlast Apple, HP, and all of the PC manufacturers.

 I'm sad to say this but there are politics in technology. There are politics anywhere you go. Although people try and avoid them, I'm sure, they do exsist. Take for example the other day. I was on a message board and there was an argument over processors. The Core 2 Duo is the king right now, but I'm still an AMD fan, as was the guy who was asking the question. He wanted a recommendation on a certain AMD processor. One of the upstanding members of the community (he really is.) tried to talk him into buying a Core 2 Duo when he clearly wanted an AMD. It's like being a conservative or Liberal in the real world. Your either AMD or Intel and ATI and nvidia. I'm a clear cut AMD/ATI guy. I hate NVIDIA for many reason's that I won't get into in this post. If you want to really UGLY then your either a PC, Mac or Linux User. Again, it's all about politics. Then you have the extremists. That would be the uber-fanboys that basically are like (excuse the LEET speak please) ZOMG! dOOD! New Hardware *falls over drooling* Or the political extremists such as Richard Stallman who want Linux to be called GNU/Linux for his own benefit. It goes from one end of the spectrum to the other. It's sad to see, but it's the truth.
I hope everyone is having a great Easter! Hope you guys get lots of chocolate!
*Pray's that weather will not disrupt celebrations*

 

    If we look back 10 years ago in 1997 it was the beging in of the Rivival of Apple, the introduction of the Pentium II, the release of Windows 98.... Fast forward 10 years, you have Steve Jobs having begun the second golden age of Apple, Linux is more prominent then ever, and the Pentium architecture has been superseded by the new Core Architecture. Windows 98 has been surpassed by Windows ME, 2000 and XP and now where on to Vista. Chips are smaller and faster, computers are prettier (no longer Biege Boxes) etc.
    But my question is this: What will the the world be like in 10 years? Intel promises to have an 80 cores on a chip by 2011, but will the keyboard and mouse survive that long? As we see in the books that predict the future, voice recognition is the medium of choice for the future. But what about going farther? Computers are getting smaller and smaller and biotech is getting more and more advanced? Can you imagine cybernetics? Without any sensory input you can control a computer with your brain. Can you imagine that? You go your giant computer screen and think "Turn On". The computer turns on. You think "Let's check Email" The email client pop's up. Can you imagine that? It's like the Borg. Except not. Now we have computers that go up to a maximim of 3 Ghz. What in 10 years? 20 Ghz? 40 Ghz? A Teraflop? I can see the monikor now "A supercomputer in every home". Robots have become a commodity. They shop for you, clean for you, do all the nasty stuff you don't want to do. Artificial intelligence is now a reality. And that's just in 10 years. What about in 20,30, 40 even 50 years?
    Just my thoughts on the future?

    So today a f

ew more details of ATI's DX 10 graphics solution codenamed R600 where leaked on Engadget. Nvidia relea sed it's DX 10 graphics solution last year with the launch of the 8800 GTX and the 8800 GTS. Nvidia claims to have a leg up over ATI with the G93 GPU with a 384-bit interface, 768 or 640 of GDDR3 and a 90nm process. Well it looks like ATI is going to up the ante with it's R600. The XTX version of R600 will have 1 GB of GDDR4 a 512-bit memory bus and an 80nm process. So all of the nvidia fans saying that ATI is sucks, I've got news for you: They don't suck. They managed to get the 80nm GPU process is pretty cool. Considering that the least that Intel and AMD are getting down to 65nm right now so it's not that far away.
    Another piece of news in the tech world was that Intel demoed it's 80 core processor. I mean where just getting into quad core right now but 80 cores?!? Who needs that many? I imagine that if Intel does release this thing it's going to mean a complete redesign of computer architechture. Will they need to design whole new chipsets and socket? Probably. And how much L2 will be on this thing? If Quad Core is extreme I don't know what to call an 80 core processor. To say the least, I think that within the next few years, technology is about to make leaps and bounds beyond what anyone has ever seen before. I can see it now.....A Supercomputer in Every living room. Can we imagine what the world will be like in a year, 5 years, 10 years? If you asked me last July who to base your system around I would have said AMD. As Jerry Pournelle said famously "Intel had boxes you could bake Pizza in" which was true because the Pentium D was hog in terms of power consumption. And then there was the fact that you could use your box as a space heater as well as your computer. If you would have told me 9 months ago that Intel would be top dog again I wouldn't have believed you. I would have said that AMD  is still king and that Intel is a sinking ship.  But AMD is going to counter  in the next few months and this time next year AMD could be king once again. That's the thing about tech: It never stands still   

How many computers do you have in your house? 
Submitted by Foomper.

A Lot. Our First Computer was a Pentium One with a 1 GB Hard Drive, which seems so small now. Our First "real" computer and with High Speed Internet which was a Dell Dimension 4400 with a 1.6 Ghz Processor 512 RAM and two drives, 1 for writing CD-R/RW's and a DVD Reader. For it's time it was one of the fastest computers for it's time. While we had 1.6 Ghz, while most of the budget computers had 1.2 Ghz and 1.4 Ghz processors as the standards. 5 years after we got that, our computer computer has been expanded to 4. Back in march mom and Dad bought a Dell Laptop . Slightly faster at 1.83 Ghz with 1 GB of RAM. It's a nice machine. With that came a wireless router that allows my sister and I to connect my computers to an Ethernet. But more on that later. The thing is though, my parents don't know the difference between LCD and CRT. They think that you can clean an LCD the same way you clean a CRT. The LCD is filthy. I've tried to get them to clean it many times, but they don't want to make the effort to go out and buy an LCD cleaning kit. Anyway, the next computer that was added was one my sister bought. A Dell (seeing a pattern?) Dimension 1100, which is a "budget" system from Dell. In comparison to the the Laptop or the older desktop. It has a Celeron in it *shudder* 512 MB of RAM a integrated graphics chip, which I despise. But it's not my computer. So that's 3 of them. Mine is different. Everything around me is Intel based. I'm AMD. Everything is AGP based. I went PCI-E. 2 of the computers have 512 GB of RAM. I went with 1 GB. I'm different I'm the odd one out. But whatever. All the other computers are in generic black cases, I have a silver case with a nice glowing fan. I forsee at least another notebook being added as I go into college in the next 2 years. And my brother or mother might get another computer for themselves, so we'll see how it shapes up.     

 Looking around the tech news world after I got back from cleaning this morning, and found this on /. AMD has released details of it's much awaited 4x4 chip. Codenamed the Quad Father, the chip will run at clock speeds of 2.6 and 3 Ghz and have a dual socket motherboard with all kinds of goodies on board including Quad SLI and 12 SATA connectors. I think it's clear that AMD is aiming this at the gaming community. I mean, who, except gamers will use Quad SLI? I don't s

ee anyone other than that using it and the 12 SATA connectors, could be used to put in a massive RAID for people who do video editing, but I think this platform is a direct shot at Intel over the "Core 2 Qudro" platform it's due to unveil in November. I think gamers will use those 12 SATA to put quite a few Raptor drives in there to optimize there gaming performance. I like AMD's  codename better than Intel's. I mean, who call's something "Core 2 Quadro"? It's like what Intel tried to do back in 90's with trademarking the 386 and 486. You can't trademark a number you idiots. Anyway enough rambling about that.
    Last night I decided to install a new piece of software called Democracy Video Player. Basically it's an open source video play er that allow you to put all your YouTube, Google and Yahoo video's in one place as well be able to subscribe via RSS, to IPTV shows like Dltv, systm,thebroken and others. It's really a nice program with a channel guide and a really nice interface. The only peeve I have with it, is that it takes a huge chunk of mem usage. More than Firefox and iTunes put together. At one point it was almost up to 400 K of system memory, that's almost half a megabyte of memory and that probably shouldn't happen in the final version. (Current version is 0.91) I would recommend this to anyone who watches a large amount of video netcasts (to be politically correct.) If they would fix a few bugs it would a perfect app. And here's the best part: It's all Open Source. So if you more techno savvy than the average user, you can go under the hood and tweak things if you want. Anyway, that's all for now.

   I just downloaded Firefox 2 RC2 from the Mozilla website. One thing that immediately noticeable from the get go is the re-designed and Web 2.0ish UI. The icons have been redone and look real spiffy. A definite improvement over Firefox 1. Another feature is that they've added the ability to close tabs individually. In Firefox 1 you had to go to the End of the

task bar. This may not seem like a big deal, but it's a real improvement. If you wanted to close multiple tabs at once,  you have to click the tab and then go to the end of the Task bar go back. It may not sound time consuming but it is. It's minor improvement, but it's a good one. A major thing that I've been looking for for a while ago,  is the streamlining of adding and removing search engines. If you wanted to do this in Firefox 1, you had to find the physical file and delete and pray to the gods of Firefox that it didn't screw up the browser. Now all you have to do is click a few buttons and it's done. Another thing that is great is the inline spell checker that's great for things like writing this post and posting on forums and stuff like that. There are a bunch of under the hood features that I won't bore you with here but needless to say it's more stable than ever.
     Today IBM announced that it's cracked the 4 Ghz barrier, which hasn't been cracked by either AMD or Intel up to this point. While AMD and Intel have been focusing on putting more cores onto a single die, IBM has been focusing on increasing the clock speeds of it's POWER architecture. Since Apple dropped the POWER PC architecture earlier this year, that was the largest and one of the only companies using the POWER architecture. While development of the Power PC chips has been slow, and that's the reason why Apple switched, IBM makes a decent processor for things like Server and there putting it into both the Xbox 360 and the Play Station 3. I still prefer AMD and Intel as the architecture is the same on both chips (x86 and x64) It will be interesting to see how both AMD and Intel counter this. With the K8L coming from AMD and the Core 2 Quadro and Clovertown coming from Intel, computers will get faster and faster and 50 years from now I don't want  to know how fast computers are going to get. The next few years will interesting.