|
 Tech
Talk
4/25/05
In
my column I hope to bring you
some information that will help
as you plan your new business
online, explore new products, and
in general, help you stay
informed. Most of the information
found here is my own personal
experiences, or information I
have gathered from the net. If it
helps you, great, please let me
know. If not, please, no hate
mail.
Chip
companies square off with new
microprocessors
Terril
Yue Jones (Los Angeles
Times)
Intel
Corporation and Advanced Micro
Devices Inc. (AMD) this week
begin a new round in their fight
to be first with cutting-edge
technology: Both companies are
introducing dual-core
microprocessors that can crunch
data faster than traditional
chips.
Intel
on Monday last introduced
dual-core Pentium desktop chips,
while AMD is expected on Thursday
to announce its dual-core chips
for server computers, which run
large corporate computer systems.
Dual-core
chips pack more computing power
into a smaller space, enhancing
performance by allowing computers
to perform multiple tasks
simultaneously, such as running
virus protection in the
background while crunching
numbers or editing video.
As
chip makers squeeze ever more
components onto single-core chips
— 1.7 billion components in
Intel's upcoming Itanium server
chip — processors have been
getting faster. They also run
hotter, requiring elaborate and
often noisy cooling systems to
control the intense heat. By
having two cores, or computing
“engines”, on a single
chip, they can divide the work
and run at slower speeds with
less power. “If you’re
playing a game and streaming
music in the background,
you’re not going to see any
hiccups,” said Liem Nguyen,
a spokesman for computer maker
Dell Inc.
“If
you’re watching TV on a PC
and reading e-mail at the same
time, when you open a new e-mail
the TV picture can get
herky-jerky. But with dual core
you're not going to experience
any performance hiccups.”
Bringing dual-core chips to
market has pitted longtime
Silicon Valley rivals Intel and
AMD in a competition for bragging
rights. Intel beat AMD to the
punch by unveiling its chips on
Monday. AMD countered that its
dual-core servers were built from
scratch while Intel merely
attached two PC cores to one
chip.
“AMD
has some advantages with faster
connection between the processor
and memory in the PC, to get
information to move more
quickly,” said Martin
Reynolds, a technology analyst
with market researcher Gartner
Inc. But Intel's overwhelming
market dominance gives it a clear
boost. AMD touts its dual-core
Opteron chips as being designed
from the ground up and
“socket-compatible”
with existing AMD chips —
meaning the old chips can be
popped out easily and replaced
with dual-core versions. AMD
claims that Intel’s new
chips are simply two PC cores on
single silicon chip, and not
designed as dual-core processors.
“At
the end of the day, we'll leave
the debates over design elegance
to others,” Intel
spokeswoman Laura Anderson said.
“What matters is the value
delivered to the marketplace for
users of the technology.”
Some
analysts say the difference in
approaches between Intel and AMD
will not be important to
consumers.
“I
don’t really care whether
they’re built from the
ground up or not, and customers
don't either,” said David
Wu, a chip analyst with Global
Crown Capital in San
Francisco.
Rob Eubanks - Tech Talk -
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Email: rob@cybercreekdesign.com
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