Updated AMD Roadmap Points to 16-Core CPU
In a press release issued yesterday, AMD laid out a few surprises in
its server platform roadmap that the company says are "game-changing,"
and perhaps indicative of a new-look AMD focused on design without the
burden of manufacturing. We have to admit we like what we're seeing,
starting with the announcement that the new monolithic six-core
Opteron, code named Istanbul, will be released this June months ahead
of schedule. But that's only the beginning. AMD also announced a new
integrated memory controller technology, Direct Connect Architecture
2.0, which it says will support up to 12 cores initially, offer
improved memory and I/O capabilities, near native virtualization
performance, and a range of full-featured power bands that place a
priority on low power consumption. But wait, there's more! In 2010, AMD
says it will ship the Opteron 6000 series for 2P and 4P servers. The
Magny-Cours processors will come in 8-core and 12-core flavors debuting
on the G34 socket and the Maranello platform. And then in 2011, AMD
will introduce the Interlagos 12- and 16-core processor based on the
Bulldozer core and built on a 32nm manufacturing process. Here's hoping
AMD will show this same aggressiveness on the desktop. Image Credit:
AMD
AMD Launches Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition, Fastest Phenom Yet
(Image Credit: AMD) AMD faithful and bargain hunters alike have a pair
of new toys to play with starting today, as AMD launches two new
processors for its socket AM3 platform, the Phenom II X4 955 Black
Edition and 945. Both parts boast compatibility with AM2+ (DDR2) and
AM3 (DDR3) motherboards, while the Phenom II X4 955 BE supplants the
AM2-based 940 as AMD's new flagship entry in its Phenom line.
Coinciding with the launch, AMD has also overhauled its Dragon Platform
Technology, saying "every aspect of the platform has been improved and
the overall value is impressive." And we'd have to agree, considering
both new chips are being priced below $250. Let's take a closer look at
the whole kit-and-kaboodle. Phenom II X4 945 Starting with the lower
model number, AMD's Phenom II X4 945 might conjure up a sense of d骠 vu
when glancing at the spec sheet, and that's because it's essentially
the same chip as AMD's Phenom II X4 940, only in AM3 trim. What this
means is that the 945 also comes clocked at 3.0GHz and packed with 8MB
of L2+L3 cache (4x512KB L2 cache per core + 6MB L3 cache), but unlike
its predecessor, the 945 supports DDR3 memory when used with an
AM3-based motherboard. For those not yet ready to upgrade their
existing board and buy new RAM, the 945 also works with AM2+ mobos.
(Image Credit: AMD) Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Ranking as the more
exciting release, at 3.2GHz AMD's Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition comes
clocked faster than any other Phenom processor to date. And like the
945, the 955BE works with both AM2+ and AM3 motherboards, the latter of
which brings support for DDR3-1333MHz memory. When paired with DDR3,
AMD says to expect up to 37.3GB/s of total processor-to-system
bandwidth, or up to 33.1GB/s when paired with DDR2-1066 memory and an
AM2+ board. No changes in cache separate the 955BE from the 945 or
940BE, but like all of AMD's Black Edition processors, the 955BE sports
an unlocked multiplier, and AMD tells us its new chip "should
demonstrate substancial overclocking headroom."? In part keeping with
the company's aggressive pricing strategy, and out of necessity given
the pressure being applied by Intel, the 955BE should see street
pricing set to around $245. According to AMD, this makes the new chip a
better buy than Intel's $270 Core 2 Quad Q9550, not only in price, but
performance too, where a suddenly spunky AMD tells us the 955BE
"definitively bests quad-cores within its price range."? (Image Credit:
AMD) Dragon Platform Receives New Wings New processors aren't the only
thing on tap over at AMD. The chip maker has given its Dragon Platform
a face lift of sorts, which consists of the following combination of
parts and technologies: Radeon HD 4890 graphics card AMD 700-series
chipset-based motherboards AMD OverDrive 3.0 (new) Phenom II X4 955
Black Edition processor (new) (Image Credit: AMD) AMD's 955BE requires
an updated BIOS to run properly, and so far, the company says a handful
of motherboards are prepared for the release. These include: AM3 /
790FX Asus M4A79T Deluxe MSI 790FX-GD70 Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-UD5P? AM3 /
790GX Asus M4A78T-E MSI 790GX-G65 Foxconn A7DA 3.0 AM2+ / 790FX Asus
M3A79-T Deluxe DFI Lanparty DK 790FXB-M2RSH AM2+ / 790GX Asus M3A78-T
Gigabyte MA790GP-DS4H Kick into High Gear with AMD OverDrive 3.0
Software Continuing its marketing blitz, AMD appears to be flying high
over its new OverDrive 3.0 software. New to version 3.0 are AMD Smart
Profiles, which gives end-users fine-tune control over the processor's
individual cores on a per appliation basis. So say you fire up a game
optimized for dual-core processors - with OverDrive, you can ramp up
the clockspeed on the two cores that will be utilized, while clocking
down the other two cores. (Image Credit: AMD) Also new to version 3.0
are Black Edition Memory Profiles (B.E.M.P.). Similar to Nvidia's EPP
profiles and Intel's XMP profiles, expect to see memory makers release
modules desiged specifically for AM3-based systems. When enabled,
B.E.M.P. will set more aggressive frequency and latency settings based
on
pre-tuned memory profiles. Other enhancements to include a customizable
autoclock, better hardware monitoring support, and Windows 7
compatibility. What Does it all Mean? No doubt it's been a rocky couple
of years for AMD, who fell from atop its perch as the performance
leader to now struggling just to keep pace with Intel's last-gen
silicon. The good news is AMD seems to finally be in a groove with its
Phenom line, and this latest launch provides AMD with a DDR3 foundation
to build upon, while also offering AM2+ motherboard owners a drop-in
replacement without the need for new RAM. And at less than $250 for the
CPU and several sub-$200 AM3 motherboards to choose from, the 955BE
offers a compelling alternative to that Core i7 rig you may have been
considering, at least on paper.
Intel Cuts Prices on Core 2 Chips
Intel this week slashed prices on several Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad
processors by up to 20 percent. The chip maker also introduced a pair
of new processors, the Core 2 Quad Q8400S and Q8400 for $245 and $183,
respectively. This month's price cuts break down as follows: Core 2
Quad Q9300: $213 down from $266 Core 2 Quad Q9550S: $320 down from $369
Core 2 Quad Q9400S: $277 down from $320 Core 2 Quad Q8200S: $213 down
from $245 Core 2 Duo SP9400: $284 down from $316 Core 2 Duo SU9400:
$262 down from $289 Intel's latest round of price cuts come well timed,
as AMD today launched its AM3-based Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition
processor. While the 955BE serves as AMD's new flagship part, the
company is aggressively pushing the chip as the best quad-core in the
market within its $245ish price range.
AMD Puts Positive Spin on Q1 Revenue Results
Having completed its metamorphosis into separate design and
manufacturing firms, AMD probably feels as though a major weight has
been lifted from its shoulders. However, the company still has some
financial ground to make up. On the bright side, AMD's first quarter
revenue of $1.77 billion remained flat (rather than tumbling backwards)
compared to the fourth quarter of 2008. However, it also represents a
decrease of 21 percent compared to the first quarter of 2008. "AMD?s
sequential microprocessor unit and revenue growth in difficult economic
conditions demonstrate we can grow in an environment where customers
are looking for maximum value," said Dirk Meyer, AMD president and CEO.
"We delivered on a number of important priorities in the first quarter.
We launched GLOBALFOUNDRIES, maintained our cadence of new product and
platform introductions, and made solid progress on our restructuring
activities. The result is a more nimble AMD, capable of achieving
long-term success based on our strengths designing and integrating
industry-leading computing and graphics technologies." Despite turning
in a $416 million first quarter loss, Meyer said AMD is "well
positioned" as people have become more discerning for paying only what
they need. Moving forward, the chip maker plans to switch over
completely to 45nm this quarter and expects a positive cash flow for
the second half of 2009. Image Credit: AMD
Rumor: Intel's 6-Core "Gulftown" Processor Delayed
If the latest web chatter turns out to be true, then Santa won't be
stuffing any 6-core Intel chips in anyone's stockings this year.
Instead, news site HKEPC tells us Intel's roadmap for for its 6-core
Gulftown chip has been pushed back from Q4 2009 / Q1 2010 to sometime
in Q2 2010. From what we know so far, Gulftown will be worth the wait.
Built around the Core i7 architecture, Gulftown will purportedly
support HyperThreading, turning those 6 cores into 12. It will also
come with two QuickPatch Interconnects (QPIs), 12MB of L3 cache, and
hardware encryption support. Perhaps best of all, Intel's 32nm Gulftown
likely serve as a drop-in replacement for LGA 1366 socket motherboards
and work with current X58 chipsets. Image Credit: Intel
IBM's Processing Alliance Gearing up for 28nm Manufacturing
IBM this week announced that members of its Bulk Process Alliance --
Globalfoundris, Chartered Semiconductor, Sasmung Electronics, ST
Microelectronics, Infineon Technologies -- have begun jointly
developing 28nm, high-k metal gate, low-power bulk complementary metal
oxide semiconductor process technology (forgot about saying that three
times fast, try doing it just once!). "Clients can begin their designs
today in leadership 32nm HKMG technology and then transition to 28nm
technology for density and power advantages, without the need for a
major redesign," IBM said. "By assuring a path from 32nm to 28nm
technology, this migration methodology offers clients lower risk,
reduced cost, and faster time-to-market." The move to 28nm is an
important one that purports to provide 40 percent better performance
than current 45nm parts, while also reducing power consumption by 20
percent. Moreover the HKMG technology offers better power leakage
characteristics for longer battery life, which added altogether will be
a boon for mobile devices. Image Credit: IBM
A Brief History of CPUs: 31 Awesome Years of x86
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Believe it or not, your terrifically fast Core i7 fresh off Intel's
assembly line contains DNA that dates back over three decades. The same
is true if you roll with AMD's latest silicon, the Phenom II X4. We're
of course referring to the longstanding x86 microprocessor architecture
that has dominated the desktop and mobile scene since before some of
you were even born, and will probably be a mainstay still yet for many
more years to come. Invented by Intel in 1978, the x86 architecture has
evolved through the ages, not only getting faster, but increasingly
flexible as more and more extensions and instruction sets accompany
each new release. It's been a wild ride the past 30 years, and whether
you lived through it all or have only recently picked up your first
processor, we invite you to join as we look back at not only the most
popular x86 CPUs in its history, but ones you may never even have heard
of. Of course, if we've missed any of your favorite CPUs, chime in on
the comments section and point out any omissions! Intel 8086 In the
beginning, Intel created the 8086 and its first 16-bit
microprocessor.And Intel said, Let there be x86: and there was x86.And
Intel saw the x86, that it was good. No, we're not about to anoint
Intel as a deity, but the gargantuan chip maker did give birth to the
x86 processor. More than 30 years later, or roughly 3,000 calendar
years in computer time, x86 continues to evolve (see how easy it is for
creationism and evolution to co-exist?) from its modest start in 1978.
That was the year Intel created the 8086, a 3-micron chip chugging
along at 4.77MHz, while later versions would run at up to 10MHz. The
8086 had just 29,000 transistors, which was still nearly four times as
many as the 8085 released in 1976, and was Intel's first 16-bit
microprocessor and responsible for kicking off the 16-bit era (note
that the 8086 wasn't the first 16-bit chip). Backwards compatibility
with software written for the 8008, 8080, and 8085, and the ability to
address 1MB of memory natively made the 8086 a near instant success.
(Image Credit: CPU-World.com) Date Released: 1978Clockspeed: 4.77MHz -
10MHz Did you know? Through some sneaky industrial espionage, the
Soviet Union was able to reverse engineer and replicate the 8086 into
their own pin-compatible K1810BM86. Intel 286 The 8086 and later the
8088 closed out the 70s and were the opening act in the early 80s. That
is, until Intel entertained the computing world with the 80286 in 1982,
a 1.5-micron part with a mind-boggling 134,000 transistors and 16MB of
addressable memory. The first 286 pedaled along at 6MHz and, like the
original 8086, would later double in speed. However, clock for clock,
the 286 boasted twice (or more) the performance of the 8086, a
generational leap in the x86 architecture that has never been
duplicated to this day. Throughout the decade, the 286 became
synonymous with IBM PCs, and within 6 years of its release, Intel
estimates there were 15 million 286-based PCs installed worldwide.
Introduced with the 286 was a feature called protected mode, which
controlled how memory was accessed. This feature allowed all 16MB of
memory to be addressed, but there was no easy mechanism in place for
the 286 to switch from protected mode back to the backwards compatible
real mode, so it was never widely used. (Image Credit: Pipux.net) Date
Released: 1982Clockspeed: 6MHz - 12.5MHz Did you know? Bill Gates
famously dubbed the 286 as a "brain dead chip," since it wasn't able to
run multiple MS-DOS applications under the Windows environment. AMD
Am286 Much has been made recently over the x86 licensing agreement
between Intel and AMD, and we have to travel back to 1982 to see how it
all began. That was the year AMD inked a deal allowing them to
manufacture and sell both 8086 and 8088 processors. The very next year,
AMD released the Am286, an exact clone of Intel's 286 processor, right
down to the pin count, but with a higher frequency. And not just faster,
but almost twice as fast at 20MHz. In some respects, the Am286 can be
viewed as the first punch thrown in a fight that has been going on for
almost 30 years. (Image Credit: CPU-World.com) Date Released:
1983Clockspeed: 8MHz - 20MHz Did you know? Like the Intel 286, the
Am286 was built on a 1500nm fab process. Today's CPUs are made with a
process that's 33 times smaller. Intel 386 With PC gaming starting to
take hold, Intel's 386 arrived not a moment too soon. Even adventure
gaming could sometimes be a chore on a 286. Every try maneuvering
Leisure Suit Larry in remade VGA form across the screen on a 286? We
have, and it wasn't fun. The 386, which was later named 386DX to avoid
confusion with a lower cost 386SX variant that would debut three years
after launch, initially ran at 16MHz and, once again, would eventually
double in speed to 33MHz. It also doubled the number of transistors
from its predecessor to 275,000 and was Intel's first 32-bit processor.
The 386 could address up to 4GB (not MB) of memory, could switch
between protected mode and real mode, and added a third 'virtual' mode,
which allowed the execution of real mode applications that were unable
to run in protected mode. (Image Credit: yjfy.com) Date Released:
1985Clockspeed: 16MHz - 33MHz Did you know? The 386 was the first
widespread microprocessor to be initially single-sourced. That is, PC
makers could only buy the chip from Intel, a policy which contributed
to the company's success in the CPU market. Intel i486 Starting to see
a pattern? Before the greatest decade ever (1980s) came to end, Intel
released one more x86 processor, the 486DX. The first CPU to include a
built-in math co-processor, the 486 raced along at 25MHz (and later
50MHz) and was also the first chip to breach the 1 million transistor
mark with 1.2 million transistors. Like the 386, it could address up to
4GB of memory, and with the addition of on-board cache, optimized
instruction set and enhanced bus interface unit, the speedy 486 found a
home in both desktop and server environments. For gamers, the 486
picked up where the 386 left off, and most old-school gamers probably
have fond memories of blowing up Tie Fighters while using a 486DX2-66.
Fast as it was (at the time), the 486 couldn't keep up with the pixel
pushing power required by the advent of 3D graphics. (Image Credit:
Wikimedia.org) Date Released: 1989 Clockspeed: 25MHz - 100MHz Did you
know? Initially launched as the i486DX, the 486 design included
numerous variations, including the i486SX, i486SL, and the widely
popular i486DX2. >>Next, AMD brings the heat... AMD Am386 If the
Am286 represents AMD's first punch thrown in the x86 bout, the AM386
was the uppercut that followed. Released in 1991, the AM386 was another
carbon-copy of Intel's 386 CPU, and once again it came clocked faster
than Intel's own silicon. It also came with a marketing edge as the
first processor to come adorned with Microsoft's "Windows Compatible"
logo, a move The New York Times described as "clearly intended to add
credibility to [AMD]'s clones of Intel's microprocessors." Intel did
its best to prevent AMD from selling its new processor, alleging that
the x86 agreement the two signed only applied to 80286 and previous
processors (sound familiar?). AMD won the ensuing court battle, and
though Intel had already released its 486 CPU, the Am386 offered near
the same performance for much less. The flurry of sales that followed
solidified AMD as a true competitor to Intel. (Image Credit:
hattix.co.uk) Date Released: 1991Clockspeed: 12MHz - 40MHz Did you
know? The Am386 was ready for release before 1991, but was tied up in
court due to a dispute over AMD's x86 license, which Intel claimed over
covered the 80286 design. Cyrix Cx486 Cyrix started off by producing
math coprocessors for 286 and 386 systems in 1988, and in 1992, the
company released its first x86 CPUs, the 486SLC and 486DLC. While the
name might suggest otherwise, both of these were pin-compatible with
the 386SX/DX, offering 386 platform owners an attractive upgrade option.
Manufactured by Texas Instruments, Cyrix's 486 series didn't come with
a math coprocessor, though one could be added. Throughout its lifespan,
the Cx486 series would come with anywhere between 1KB and 8KB of L1
cache and ramp as high as 100MHz. (Image Credit: cpu-museum.de) Date
Released: 1992Clockspeed: 20MHz - 100MHz Did you know? Due to its low
power consumption, the Cyrix Cx486 was a popular part for laptops int
he early 90s. Intel Pentium Now in its fifth generation, Intel's
Pentium processor brought the x86 architecture to new heights, as well
as brought along a new naming scheme. Unable to patent numbers, Intel
avoiding dubbing its newest chip the 586. The Pentium introduced
several improvements designed to address the performance bottlenecks of
previous processors. Chief among them was a 64-bit wide date bus, two
execution units, a much improved floating point unit (FPU), and faster
clockspeeds. Intel's Pentium processor launched at 60MHz, but it didn't
take long for faster chips to follow before it eventually topped out a
233MHz. During its lifespan, the Pentium also shrunk from a 0.8-micron
manufacturing process to 0.35-microns and increased its transistor
count from 3.1 million to 4.5 million. In 1996, Intel began selling
Pentium MMX processors. The MMX instruction set added additional
registers to the architecture and were designed to give multimedia and
communications applications a boost. (Image Credit:
Microprocessor.sscc.ru) Date Released: 1993Clockspeed: 60MHz - 233MHz
Did you know? The name Pentium is derived from the Greek "penta" and
Latin ending "-ium," meaning "five." AMD Am486 The last clone in the
true Clone Wars, AMD's Am486 debuted almost a full four years after
Intel's 486 came out, and one month after the Pentium. To compete with
the existing 486 chip, AMD undercut the competition by selling its
version for less, while clocking it higher than Intel's 486. Some of
AMD's faster 66MHz chips even gave Intel's newly released Pentium a run
for its money. (Image Credit: liafa.jusseu.fr) Date Released: 1993
Clockspeed: 25MHz - 120MHz Did you know? AMD also marketed an Am486
variant with a 4x clock multiplier as an AMD 5x86 which ran at 133MHz
and performed comparably to the Pentium 75MHz. Intel Pentium Pro
Despite the minor nomenclature update, the Pentium Pro represented a
pretty significant update over the original Pentium, bringing with it a
new microarchitecture rather than just a set of minor enhancements. The
Pro added another million transistors to its die (5.5 million), but
more importantly was the addition of its L2 cache, 256KB to start and
later up to 1MB. While not yet integrated into the processor core
itself, the Pentium Pro's L2 cache still ran at the same clockspeed as
the CPU, anywhere from 150MHz to 200MHz. But while the Pentium Pro's L2
cache gave it an advantage, it also presented problems for the chip.
Putting the cache on a separate die introduced manufacturing defects
that led to lower yields, and ultimately higher prices. This might have
been okay, had it not been for the fact that the Pentium Pro shined
brightest on 32-bit OSes when 16-bit still reigned supreme. (Image
Credit: Tomshardware.com) Date Released: 1995Clockspeed: 150MHz -
200MHz Did you know? Intel released a 300MHz Pentium II "Overdrive"
processor in 1998 that fit into the Pentium Pro's Socket 8 as an
upgrade path for Pentrium Pro owners. Cyrix Cx5x86 Still a relative
newcomer to the x86 market, Cyrix proved it wasn't a one-hit wonder by
following up the Cx486 series with its Cx5x86. And once again Cyrix
preyed on end-users looking for a drop-in replacement to their existing
setup by making the Cx5x86 compatible with 486 Socket 3 motherboards.
The same couldn't be said for Intel's Pentium chip, giving Cyrix a leg
up in this respect. Stability issues forced Cyrix to disable some of
the features it touted for its new series, including branch prediction
and other performance enhancements. However,the Cx5x86's time on the
market ended prematurely not because of design issues, but because Cyrix
didn't want the chip cutting into sales of its 6x86 chip, which was
released just six months after the 5x86. (Image Credit: cpu-world.com)
Date Released: 1995Clockspeed: 100MHz - 133MHz Did you know? Cyrix
rated the speeds of its chips rather liberally, and very few of the
Cx5x86 processors actually ran at 133MHz. >>Next, how well did
Intel fare against Kryptonite? AMD Am5x86 Offering an easy upgrade path
for 486 computers, AMD's Am5x86 was really a 486DX with an internal x4
multiplier. This allowed the chip to run at 133MHz and ensured
compatibility with most existing 486 motherboards, while offering
performance on par with ,and sometimes better than, Intel's Pentium 75.
But what really stands out about the Am5x86 is that it became the first
chip to make use of AMD's Performance Rating (PR), a tactic that would
play an even bigger role later on. In this case, AMD sold the processor
as an Am5x86-P75, letting customers know it was AMD's equivalent of a
Pentium 75. (Image Credit: Extrahardware.cz) Date Released:
1995Clockspeed: 133MHz Did you know? AMD's Performance Rating would be
used up until the Athlon 64 X2 line of processors. AMD K5 Intel, having
helped spur the competition with a licensing agreement that paved the
way for faster clones, didn't make the same mistake with its Pentium
line. As a result, AMD (and everyone else) could no longer simply clone
Intel's silicon and sell it as their own. And thus was born the K5,
AMD's first attempt at a next generation CPU developed in-house. As
might have been expected, design problems reared their ugly heads
forcing AMD to delay the K5's launch. After working out the kinks, AMD
released the K5 in 1996. Technically superior to Intel's Pentium, the
K5 contained 4.5 million transistors, five integer units, a much larger
branch prediction unit, and 16KB of cache, or twice the amount as found
on the Pentium. Unfortunately for AMD, the K5 suffered from low clock
rates and failed to deliver any knockout blows to Intel's Pentium, nor
was it a sales success. (Image Credit: x86-guide.com) Date Released:
1996Clockspeed: 75MHz - 133MHz Did you know? The 'K' in K5 and
subsequent AMD processors was inspired by Kryptonite of Superman lore.
Cyrix 6x86 and MII Formerly called the M1, the Cyrix 6x86 was both pin-
and voltage-compatible with Intel's Pentium processor. However, it
wasn't a reverse-engineered Pentium clone and instead an original
design, which made it not 100 percent Pentium compatible. Early
versions shipped with 16KB of cache and showed impressive benchmark
performance, often outperforming faster clocked Pentium chips in some
scenarios. This led to Cyrix adopting a Performance/Pentium Rating of
its own, despite its comparatively poor FPU performance. Later versions
of the 6x86 would be renamed MII. The MII revision brought with it
lower heat output, paving the way for faster clockspeeds. This
sometimes came at the expense of compatibility because it required
non-standard bus speeds at 75MHz or 83MHz on socket 7 boards. (Image
Credit: Recycledgoods.com) Date Released: 1996Clockespeed: 80Mhz -
385MHz Did you know? There were three different versions of the Cyrix
6x86: the original single-voltage version, a low-power version with
split core, and one with an advanced MMX instruction set. AMD K6 While
AMD's K5 turned out to be a forgettable CPU, the K6 rollout went much
more smoothly and to a warmer reception. This was thanks in part to
co-development efforts by Vinod Dham, who is known as the "Father of
the Pentium" for his work in developing the Pentium CPU. Dham left
Intel in 1996 before ultimately landing at a company called NexGen,
later acquired by AMD. NexGen actually designed what would be the K6,
which included MMX instructions and an FPU. Launched in April 1997, the
K6 served as a drop-in replacement for Pentium's Socket 7 motherboards.
The K6, along with the NexGen acquisition, once again underscored AMD's
position as a major chip competitor. Date Released: 1997Clockspeed:
166MHz - 300MHz Did you know? The K6 briefly used a Pentium II-based
performance rating (PR2), but this designation was eventually dropped.
Intel Pentium II and Pentium II Xeon To improve yields, Intel moved the
L2 cache to an external cache chip. Doing so meant running the cache at
half the speed of the CPU, which Intel tried to negate by doubling the
amount of L2 cache from 256KB to 512KB on the lowest end Pentium II.
This not only eventually led to lower prices (Pentium II cost a pretty
penny at launch) and sub-$1,000 PCs, but also prompted Intel to package
its new processor in a Single Edged Contact Cartridge to be plugged
into the new Slot1 motherboards. From a design standpoint, the Pentium
II first showed up using a 0.35-micron manufacturing process that was
later reduced to 0.25-microns, contained 7.5 million transistors, and
could address 64GB of memory. Additionally, the Pentium II also gave
birth to the first Xeon-brand processors, released in 1998. But unlike
the regular Pentium II, the Xeon version ran its L2 cache at full
speed, up to 2MB of it. (Image Credit: isosystems.eu) Date Released:
1997 (Xeon in 1998)Clockspeed: 233MHz - 450MHz (Xeon 400MHz - 450MHz)
Did you know? The Pentium II's codenames were Klamath and Deschutes for
the desktop models and Tonga and Dixon for the mobile counterparts.
Cyrix Media GX (National Semiconductor) Facing financial trouble, Cyrix
found relief when it was bought out by National Semiconductor in 1997.
It also found a change in philosophy, as National Semiconductor was
much more interested in the value market than it was in trying to
compete at the high end. The result of this new mentality was the Media
GX, a processor based on the Cyrix 5x86 with integrated graphics,
memory controller, and PCI controller. This would be paired with a
companion chip that would contain the IDE controller, sound functions,
and other tasks. (Image Credit: ukcpu.net) Date Released:
1997Clockspeed: 120MHz - 300MHz Did you know? MediaGX processors can
only run on motherboards specifically designed for the same model
processor. >>Next, the first processor with a vegetable as its
nickname... Centaur Technology WinChip Pat yourself on the back if you
remember the WinChip or, better yet, can follow the cluster**** of
business acquisitions and collaborations between VIA, Cyrix, National
Semiconductor, IDT, and Centaur Technology, among others who are in
some way intertwined. In this case, Centaur Technology produced and
sold the WinChip, a Socket 7 processor. Deviating from traditional x86
processor design, Centaur used what it knew about RISC processors and
created a chip with a smaller gate count and reduced die size. It was a
simple, energy efficient design best suited for less demanding tasks.
It didn't have any L2 cache, but did have 64KB of L1 cache. It also
supported MMX and 3DNow!, but Intel's low-cost and faster performing
Celeron ended any hopes Centaur might have had for the WinChip. (Image
Credit: watch.impress.co.jp) Date Released: 1997Clockspeed: 180MHz -
250MHz Did you know? Centaur was sold to VIA in 1999, and elements of
the WinChip were used in the company's Cyrix III line. Intel Celeron
Intel had done well serving the higher end and server markets up
through the Pentium II and Pentium II Xeon, but the company lacked a
true entry-level chip targeted specifically at the value PC sector.
Enter the Celeron, a much lower performance part with a much lower
price that first appeared in 1998. Later in the x86 game, some specific
Celeron models would make a compelling alternative for end-users
looking to save a buck or three without sacrificing too much
performance, particularly for those willing to overclock, but first-run
Celerons based on the Pentium II core met with poor initial reaction
from the general populace. This was due, in part, to the lack of L2
cache at debut, a trait which helped cripple performance. Later on,
Intel would release another version with 128KB of L2 cache, and this
would, in some cases, double the performance over the cacheless
version. The combination of full speed L2 cache and ability to run
beyond its stock speed made these second-run Celeron chips a hit among
the overclocking crowd. Throughout the years, Intel's Celeron line has
accompanied Intel's mainstream processors, with the latest Celerons
being built around the Allendale architecture and sporting two-cores.
Date Released: 1998Clockspeed: 266MHz - 3.2GHz Did you know? The
Mendocino Celeron, dubbed the 300A, was extremely popular with
overclockers, who could run it reliable at 450MHz. AMD K6-2 and K6-2+
Continuing the success of the K6, AMD's K6-2, released in 1998, brought
another MMX unit to the table as well as a new SIMD instruction set
famously known as 3DNow! This gave AMD a slight head start in tearing
through 3D applications before Intel fired back with its SSE
instruction set. The K6-2 held appeal as a cost-conscious upgrade for
Super Socket 7 motherboard owners. Later on, AMD would follow suit with
the K6-2+, which added 128KB of L2 cache and a smaller manufacturing
process (180nm versus 250nm). (Image Credit: CPU-World.com) Date
Released: 1998Clockspeed: 233MHz - 50MHz Did you know? SIMD, aka
3Dnow!, stands for "Single Instruction, Multiple Data." It's also known
commonly as "vector instructions." AMD K6-3 The last of the K6 line,
AMD's K6-3 showed up in early 1999 and was the last Socket 7 processor
ever made. K6-3 didn't have much time to bask in the the limelight, as
Intel released a new processor, the Pentium III, just a few days after
AMD's launch. Essentially a K6-2 with 256KB of L2 cache and more than
twice as many transistors (21.3 million versus 9.3 million), the K6-2
was initially successful, but quickly forgotten once AMD released its
Athlon series. (Image Credit: Knowplace.org) Date Released:
1999Clockspeed: 350MHz - 570MHz Did you know? The K6-3's codename was
"Sharptooth." Intel Pentium III and Pentium III Xeon Things really
started cooking for Intel with the release of the Pentium III in 1999.
The addition of SSE instructions led to the ability to process up to
four single-precision floating point numbers simultaneously and it was
better at handling 3D, imaging, streaming content, and other multimedia
tasks than the Pentium II. Later on, Intel would release the Pentium
III Coppermine. Coppermine featured 256KB of integrated full-speed L2
cache, a tweaked pipeline, and other enhancements that led to a
sometimes significantly faster processor than the first Pentium III.
Yet another PIII chip -- called Tualatin -- would appear, which boasted
higher clockspeeds, more cache, a die shrink, and lower temp voltage
requirements leading to lower temps. Tualatin would provid the initial
framework for Intel's mobile Pentium-M processor, which would later go
on to inspire today's Core i7 CPUs. As for the Pentium III Xeon,
Intel's server chip didn't differ dramatically from its desktop
brethren, although later run PIII Xeons would add more cache (up to
2MB) and support quad-processor configurations. (Image Credit:
Deskpicture.com) Date Released: 1999Clockspeed: 450MHz -1.4GHz Did you
know? The original Xbox uses a variant of the Pentium III Celeron
processor in a Micro-PGA2 form factor. AMD Athlon (Classic and
Thunderbird) Arguably the most significant series in AMD's CPU history,
and certainly the most important in the company's recent history, AMD's
Athlon line hit Intel square between the eyes and was such a success,
even the Intel faithful found themselves building an AMD system for the
first time. Dirk Meyer, who would later rise in rank as AMD's CEO, led
the design team that developed Athlon, at first a cartridge-based
processor with 512KB of L2 cache. Debuting at 500MHz, AMD beat Intel to
the 1GHz mark with its Athlon processor, an important (and much
anticipated) milestone at the time. Over time, AMD would tweak its
Athlon processor for the better, starting with the Thunderbird. The new
core revision brought with it faster cache along with a few other
tweaks that made it highly desirable. It also kicked off AMD's Socket A
(462), one of the most successful motherboard sockets of all time.
(Image Credit: Wikipedia) Date Released: 1999Clockspeed: 500MHz -
1.4GHz Did you know? The Athlon Thunderbird was AMD's most successful
product since the Am386 ten years earlier. The name Athlon is Greek for
"contest." >>Next, a processor stranded on an island... National
Semiconductor Geode An evolution of the Media GX processor, the Geode
picked up where Cyrix left off, but not for long. In 2003, National
Semiconductor sold its Geode business to AMD, who continued to tweak
the system-on-a-chip processor. Earlier versions can be found in some
OLPCs, however AMD's latest Geodes (Geode NX) are based on the
company's Athlon XP Thoroughbred core and include 256KB of L2 cache. It
can also operate at up to 1GHz with passive cooling. As of this year,
AMD has stopped working on the Geode line. Date Released:
1999Clockspeed: 166MHz - 1.4GHz Did you know? The One Laptop per Child
project uses Geode LX processors. Transmeta Crusoe and Efficeon A
newcomer to the x86 chip market, Transmeta's Crusoe debuted in 2000
amid much hype. Crusoe was designed as an energy conscious,
cool-running mobile part consuming anywhere from 1W to 3W during
typical usage. At first built on a 180nm manufacturing process (and
later 130nm), it owed much of its power savings to a software emulation
layer. This, combined with the lack of emulation for SSE instructions,
led Intel's Don MacDonald to say "You should check whether the
Transmeta chip is 100 percent x86-compatible." Over time Transmeta
would revise its Crusoe chip, but the lack of comparable performance to
Intel's and AMD's offerings combined with only negligible real-world
energy management led to limited success for Transmeta's x86 CPU. So in
2004, Transmeta released a second x86 chip, the Efficeon. The new
Efficeon microarchitecure was based on a 256-bit VLIW (Very Long
Instruction Word) processor rather 128-bit like the Crusoe. Through
Morphing Software, it also added much better x86 software
compatibility, including MMX, SSE, and SSE instructions. All told,
Efficeon offered significant performance gains over Crusoe, sometimes
as high as 200 percent, but faced increasing competition from Intel and
AMD in the mobile market. After losing hundreds of millions of dollars
over several years, Transmeta stopped making chips and instead focused
on selling its technology. In January 2009, Transmeta was acquired by
Novafora. (Image Credit: x86-guide.com) Date Released: 2000 Clockspeed:
300MHz - 2GHz Did you know? The Crusoe processor was named after the
literary character Robinson Crusoe, which Transmeta's founder claimed
"denotes mobility." VIA Cyrix III and C3 Cyrix once again passed hands,
this time having been sold to VIA in 1999 who then released the Cyrix
III x86 CPU in early 2000 for Socket 370 motherboards. Cyrix had
already been working on the Cyrix III, but several design issues led to
VIA issuing a core revision reducing the number of transistors from 22
million to 11 million. By doing so, the Cyrix III was primed to reach
higher clockspeeds, which would come to label the chip in place the
Performance Rating Cyrix had previously been using. Yet another
revision, codenamed Samuel 2, would add 64KB of L2 cache to the chip
and switch from a 180nm to 150nm manufacturing process, again paving
the way for faster clockspeeds. VIA would also later change the name of
the Cyrix III to simply C3, as Cyrix technology was no longer part of
the architecture. Date Released: 2000Clockspeed: 350MHz - 1.4GHz Did
you know? The retail C3 chips shipped inside a colorful cylindrical
metal tin. The power-saving C3's also consumed fewer than 10 watts. AMD
Duron Making a bid for the performance crown is only half the battle,
and so in 2000 AMD released its Duron processor to compete with Intel's
Celeron and win over the budget market. Essentially a crippled Athlon
Thunderbird, early Durons featured a slower frontside bus at 100MHz
and, as is almost always the case with low-cost chips, reduced cache.
Durons came with just 64KB of L2 cache at a time with 256KB and 512KB
were becoming the norm. These ranged in frequency from 600MHz to
950MHz. Second generation Durons would be based on the Athlon XP
architecture and add SSE support, and a final Duron revision based on
the Thoroughred Athlon XP would see a faster frontside bus (133MHz) and
clockspeeds up to 1.8GHz. (Image Credit: x86-guide.com) Date Released:
2000Clockspeed: 600MHz to 1.8GHz Did you know? Overclockers discovered
that the first batch of "Applebred" class Durons could actually be
turned into "Thoroughbred B" Athlon XPs with full 256KB cache. Intel
Pentium 4 Sometimes change is a good thing, and other times -- as is
the case here -- change can turn out to be bad. But even worse is when
everybody knows something is bad, yet nothing is done about it for a
long, long time. Enter the Pentium 4 processor and Intel's new NetBurst
architecture. At the risk of oversimplifying, Intel's Pentium III
processor thrived on a highly efficient design that, had Intel
continued to tweak, probably would never have allowed AMD to build as
big of an enthusiast following as it has done. Instead, Intel left the
door open for AMD by fixating on increasingly higher clockspeeds, a
goal it planned to reach by introducing an exceedingly long-staged
pipeline in the Pentium 4. While this paved the path for higher
clockspeeds, a longer stage pipeline meant a bigger performance penalty
when a set of instructions had to be thrown out and started over from
scratch. Imagine putting almost all the pieces of a car together on an
assembly line, only to find out towards the end that the windshield
doesn't fit. But rather than ordering a new windshield, you have to
scrap the entire car and all the work that went into it. Pentium 4
wasn't all bad, though, and it did introduce both SSE2 and SSE3
instruction sets. Combined with HyperThreading, the Pentium 4 excelled
with multimedia and content creation tasks, as well as code optimized
for the new core. And with 3D graphics cards continuing to increase in
power, a P4 chip provided a serviceable foundation for gaming rigs.
Overclockers took a keen interest in the Northwood core released in
2002. With a capable motherboard and RAM, even beginning overclockers
could set their sights on 1GHz overclocks using air cooling. Still, for
a Pentium 4 to really shine, it needed to ramp up clockspeeds to
unprecedented levels. Intel envisioned this happening with the much
anticipated Prescott core, the first chip to be built on a 90nm
manufacturing process. But Prescott ran uncomfortably hot at launch,
offered negligible performance gains, failed to live up to its
pre-release hype, and was getting trounched by AMD silicon in gaming
benchmarks. (Image Credit: windowsdevcenter.com) Date Released:
2000Clockspeed: 1.40GHz - 3.8GHz Did you know? Overclocking "Northwood"
Pentium 4s was a nightmare, since using core voltages above 1.7V would
quickly kill the CPU -- a phenomenom known as Sudden Northwood Death
Syndrome. >>The highest clocked CPU released ends the MHz war...
AMD Athlon XP Still part of the Athlon family, AMD's XP revision would
add SSE instructions and represent a more aggressive approach to
marketing. XP stood for eXtreme Performance and tied in nicely with
Microsoft's Windows XP operating system, but it didn't stop there. AMD
also went back to using a Performance Rating (PR) system for labeling
its processors. Officially, AMD's PR rating (yes, we realize that's
redundant) was used to denote an XP chip's performance to that of an
equivalent Thunderbird core, so an AMD Athlon XP 1800+ would, in
theory, offer the same performance as a Thunderbird running at 1.8GHz
(1,800MHz). However, in practice it was much more widely used as a
point of reference next to Intel's Pentium processor, even if this was
incorrect, leading many to refer to the abbreviation as a Pentium
Rating. Yet another revision -- the Thoroughbred, or T-Bred -- would be
released and drop the manufacturing process down from 180nm to 130nm.
Later models would also increase the frontside bus from 100MHz
(Thunderbird) and 133MHz (XP) to 166MHz (T-Bred). But the most popular
Socket A Athlon was the one built around the Barton core. Barton chips
first appeared in 2003 and represented a tremendous value for
enthusiasts and overclockers alike. Of particular interest were early
revision Barton 2500+ processors, which shipped with an unlocked
multiplier. By upping the multiplier, most Barton 2500+ chips could
easily be transformed into AMD's flagship 3200+ model. Not only were
Barton CPUs affordable, but so were the high-end motherboards they ran
on, namely the Asus A7N8X Deluxe and Abit NF7-S Rev2, the two top
overclocking boards of the time. When AMD began locking the multiplier,
these and other top-end boards allowed the 2500+ to run like a 3200+
with a quick frontside bus adjustment. From a technical standpoint, the
Barton core doubled up its L2 cache to 512KB and increased the number
of transistors from around 37 million (depending on the core) to 54.3
million. Date Released: 2001Clockspeed: 650MHz - 2.25GHz Did you know?
Mobile Athlon XPs were favored for their high overclocking ability
(reportedly up to 3.1GHz) and stable underclocking ability, which was
idea for home theater PCs. AMD Sempron Picking up where the Duron left
off, AMD's Sempron brand replaced the Duron as the company's budget
chip and Celeron competitor. And like the Duron, Semprons featured
reduced L2 cache, or at least most of them did. Standing as an oddity
among the rest was the Sempron 3000+ Not much more than a name change
at first, early Semprons were basically Athlon XP chips with some of
its cache disabled. However, the Sempron 3000+ contained 512KB of L2
cache and ran at 2.0GHz with at 166MHz frontside bus. For all intents
and purposes, the Sempron 3000+ was really a Barton 2700+, if such a
chip existed. It contained the same amount of L2 cache as a Barton, ran
the same speed frontside bus, and was clocked between a Barton 2600+
(1.9MHz) and 2800+ (2.08GHz). Semprons would continue to evolve
alongside (and under) AMD's mainstream processor lines and still exist
today. Date Released: 2004Clockspeed: 1.4GHz to 2.3GHz Did you know?
While Athlon XP processors were rated relative to the Pentium 4 family,
Semprons were rated relative to the budget Celerons. AMD Athlon 64 If
you're an AMD loyalist, you may want to skip this section, as it's like
remembering an old friend before he was later gunned down. AMD's
highest point came with with release of its Athlon 64 series, the first
64-bit processors aimed at mainstream users. While Intel was busy
trying to ramp up its NetBurst-based P4 processors, AMD stole the
performance crown with a much more efficient architecture and an
integrated memory controller. Not without some intial growing pains,
A64 was first made available for Socket 754 motherboards, which lacked
dual-channel memory support, and Socket 940, a server-oriented socket
requiring buffered RAM. But like a perfect storm, Socket 939 brought
with it dual-channel memory support, PCI-E, and a long-term upgrade
path that helped cement AMD as the performance leader. Even though A64
offered native 64-bit support, it was also fully backwards compatible
with 32-bit code without any noticeable performance penalty. This was
huge for Windows users, who were still living in a 32-bit world (the
same holds true today, although 64-bit Vista is lightyears ahead of
64-bit XP). Date Released: 2004Clockspeed: 1.0GHz to 3.2GHz Did you
know? The Athlon 64s have been designed for over five sockets,
including the 754, 939, 940, AM2, and Socket F (featuring 1207 pins).
Intel Pentium D The ill-fated NetBurst architecture made its last stand
in Intel's Pentium D brand. Pentium D processors consisted of two
single-core CPU dies fused to a multi-chip module. While not as elegant
as AMD's dual-core design, the Pentium D offered decent multitasking
performance, good overclocking performance, and comparatively low
prices. The Pentium D provided a solid alternative to the Intel
faithful who refused to invest in AMD. Date Released: 2005Clockspeed:
2.66GHz to 3.73GHz Did you know? The Pentium D branded 965 chip was
Intel's highest clocked CPU at 3.73GHz (which could be overclocked to
4.26GHz), though it technically was a Pentium Extreme Edition CPU. AMD
Athlon 64 X2 Continuing its dominance on the desktop, AMD's Athlon 64
X2 series consisted of two CPU cores on a single die sharing a crossbar
that connects them to the integrated memory controller. These internal
data links paid huge performance dividends compared to Intel's
dual-core configuration, which had each core pushing communication
through a shared frontside bus. SSE3 instructions were added to the X2
series, but most importanly, AMD managed to keep the new chip on Socket
939. While not all boards were compatible, many 939 mobos could handle
an X2 upgrade with nothing more than a BIOS update, which meant AMD
could tap into an existing install based for its new processors. (Image
Credit: Flickr Fr3d.org) Date Released: 2006Clockspeed: 1.0GHz to
3.2GHz Did you know? The Athlon 64 4000+ was the last single core model
in the Athlon 64 series, but single-core Athlons lived on in the FX
line. Intel Core 2 Waking out of its Netburst slumber, Intel took the
CPU world by storm with its Core 2 architecture. Instead of remaining
fixated on higher clockspeeds, Intel refocused its attention on being
more efficient with its pipeline. This meant a return to lower
clockspeeds, however it also meant a return to prominence as the
performance king. After Prescott failed to live up to its hype, the
media remained cautiously optimistic that Core 2 could live up to
Intel's promised performance gains, but much to the chagrin of AMD,
Core 2 lived up to its billing, and then some. The first Core 2 Duos
burst out of the gates with 167 million transistors, a 65nm
manufacturing process, 2MB of L2 cache, and a 1,066MHz frontside bus.
Despite debuting at just 1.86GHz and 2.13GHz (E6300 and E6400,
respectively), Core 2's performance made it instantly attractive, and
Intel's aggressive pricing sealed the deal. Later on, Core 2 would move
to a 45nm manufacturing process with its Penryn revision, pack up to
820 million transistors into a quad-core package, and reach as high as
3.2GHz. (Image Credit: Flickr BodHack) Date Released: 2006Clockspeed:
1.8GHz - 3.2GHz Did you know? Intel actually
made single-core Core 2
chips for its mobile line, based on the Merom and Penryn designs.
>>Next, what's the difference between a dual-core and a core 2?
Intel Pentium Dual-Core It might seem strange to resurrect the Pentium
name at this stage in the game, but that's exactly what Intel did.
Somewhat confusing, the Pentium Dual-Core is based on Intel's Core
technology, and not earlier Pentium chips, nor is it a derivative of
the Pentium D. The first Pentium Dual-Core processors took aim at the
notebook market before later being ported over to the desktop. These
were intended to fill a gap between the Celeron and Core 2 series.
(Image Credit: TomsHardware) Date Released: 2006Clockspeed: 1.4GHz -
2.8GHz Did you know? "Dual Core" is just another way of referring to
any processor package with two physical CPUs, which technically
includes the Pentium D. AMD Phenom Having given up the performance
crown to Intel's Core 2 architecture, AMD's previous success led to
optimism that something special was brewing with Barcelona, the
codename for what would later be called Phenom. Hype was so high that
it may have been impossible to live up to even if Intel never released
Core 2, but a delay in Phenom's release would only foreshadow more
trouble to come. When Phenom was finally released, it failed to win
back the performance crown, even though Core 2 had been out for a year.
Early Phenom revisions also contained a bug, and overclocking efforts
were often met with frustration. And if that weren't enough, Intel's
Nehalem architecture was just around the corner. Lest we give the wrong
impression, Phenom wasn't (and still isn't) a bad architecture when
judged on its own merits. Several SIMD instruction sets were present,
including MMX, Enhanced 3DNow!, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, and SSE4a, it
contained four cores, and performance overall was very good. It just
wasn't on the level of Intel's latest silicon, made even worse (for
AMD) by Intel's aggressive pricing strategy. Date Released:
2007Clockseepd: 1.8GHz to 3.0GHz Did you know? AMD's quad-core Phenoms
were the first true monolithic quad-core chips, a feature mirrored in
Intel's Core i7 CPUs. Intel Core i7 If you're an AMD fan, go ahead and
cue the Evil Empire music. The Core i7's march onto the desktop has
spelled nothing but trouble for AMD, who is still struggling to keep up
with Intel's previous generation Core 2 architecture. Meanwhile, Core
i7 (formerly known as Nehalem) stands in a league of its own. Adding
insult to injury, Intel borrowed a page from AMD and finally retired
the traditional frontside bus in favor of a QuickPath Interconnect,
which is Intel's equivalent of AMD's HyperTransport. This
point-to-point interconnect allows for much faster communication
between the CPU and various subsystems. This has also meant that
overclockers have had to 'relearn' how to overclock, which includes
learning several new terms. So far there are just three Core i7
processors available -- Core i7-920, Core i7-940, and Core i7-965 --
each built on a 45nm manufacturing process with 731 million transistors
and 8MB of L2 cache. Date Released: 2008Clockspeed: 2.66GHz - 3.2GHz
Did you know? The Core i7 has a 263 mm-squared die size, compared to
Core 2's 143 mm-squared die. AMD Phenom II Many feel that Phenom II is
what the original Phenom should have been all along. With triple the
amount of L3 cache (6MB versus 2MB), DDR3 support, and the elimination
of the a 'cold bug' that was the bane of extreme overclockers, the
Phenom II closed the performance gap between itself and Intel's Core 2
line. The only problem with that is Intel has since moved on to Core
i7, which currently is untouchable by the best AMD has to offer. Unable
to compete for the performance crown, AMD has been forced to price its
processors well below where it would like. Whereas the Athlon 64 X2
chips had a tendency to run high, AMD's flagship processor today, the
Phenom II X4 940, streets for just $215, well below the $1,000 mark
that flagship processors typically command. (Image Credit: Flickr
JoongDal) Date Released: 2008Clockspeed: 2.5GHz - 3.0Ghz Did you know?
The tri-core 700 series Phenom IIs are just quad-core chips with one
faulty core, which is disabled. Intel Atom You may have noticed we left
a few mobile-specific processors off our x86 timeline and have instead
brought them up where appropriate. But we can't ignore Intel's Atom
series, which has been a driving force in the uber-popular netbook
(mobile) and nettop (desktop) sectors. Why is this important? Because
despite a global economic downturn, worldwide PC sales have remained on
an uptick thanks in large part to the explosive growth of netbooks, the
vast majority of which sport an Intel Atom processor inside. On the
hardware front, these low-power chips only boast 47 million
transistors, 512KB of L2 cache, and a top clockspeed of 1.86GHz. A
dual-core variant exists for the desktop, but so far not for mobile
PCs. Date Released: 2008Clockspeed: 800MHz - 2GHz Did you know? Almost
15 million Atom-based netbooks were shipped in 2008, with growth
expected in 2009. VIA Nano While Intel's Atom series appears to have a
death grip on the low-power computing market, don't count VIA out.
VIA's Nano line might not enjoy the same level of sales as the Atom,
but clock for clock, some benchmarks show the Nano performing better,
albeit while also consuming slightly more power. Available anywhere
from 1GHz to 1.8GHz on a 533MHz or 800MHz frontside bus, VIA's Nano
includes up to a whopping 1MB of L2 cache. It also supports several
instruction sets, including MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, and SSSE3. Furthing
adding to Nano's appeal is the promise of a dual-core variant aimed at
netbooks in 2010. Should it beat Intel to the punch -- and all
indications suggest it will -- the Nano could prove to be a game
changer. Date Released: 2008Clockspeed: 1GHz - 1.8GHz Did you know?
While Atom is built for low power and used specifically for netbooks,
the Nano will eventually make its way into small form factor and green
desktop PCs.
Can Intel Deliver 2 Second OS Boot Times?
For some time now Intel has been working on a Linux-based operating
system (now in its alpha stage of testing), named Moblin. The goal of
Moblin is to provide the Atom CPU a light and fast OS that is far less
demanding than a full version of Windows. According to those in the
alpha test, Moblin can offer two second boot times (with some
optimization). If all this were true, then it would give us the fastest
booting OS available. Intel?s Open Source Technology Center director
Imhad Sousou is very much on board as well, stating, ?We think that two
second boot is possible.? A two second boot would provide an ideal
platform for mobile systems (such as netbooks and MIDs) to operate on.
For many, having a system in sleep mode (which drains the battery) is
preferable to booting the system each and every time they want to use
it. The concept of a two second boot would eliminate the need for this.
So, given the concept of a two second boot, would you be willing to
ditch Windows and give Moblin a try? Let us know in the comments! Image
Credit: Intel
